Alberto Fujimori Fujimori

This case summary is being revised and will be updated soon

Court	Supreme Court, Special Criminal Chamber, Peru
Case number	A.V. 19-2001
Decision title	Sentencia
Decision date	7 April 2009
Categories	Crimes against humanity
Keywords	crimes against humanity, extradition, illegal detention, international cooperation, Murder
Links	Sentencia: Fundamentos y fallo (in Spanish) Sentencia: Cuestiones de hecho (in Spanish)
Other countries involved	Chile

Procedural history

After the collapse of his government in November 2000, Mr. Fujimori fled to his parents’ native Japan where he lived in self-imposed exile for five years. After having formally announced his return to Peru to run in the 2006 presidential elections, he flew to Chile in November 2005, where he was arrested under a warrant delivered by the Peruvian authorities. The extradition request was rejected on 11 July 11 2007, after the Chilean High Court determined that the 12 criminal charges (10 for corruption and 2 for human rights violations, including killing and illegal detention) were “not considerable” (considerables). However, on 21 September 2007, the Chilean Supreme Court approved Fujimori’s extradition to Peru for seven of the 12 requested criminal charges, including the two regarding human rights abuses.

Fujimori was extradited on 22 September 2007, and incarcerated in Peru. The Special Criminal Chamber of the Peruvian Supreme Court, composed of three principal judges, began to hear its case the first week of October 2007.

The Dictamen of 29 October 2007 can be found here.

All the court documents can be found here: Sala penal especial de la Corte Suprema Peruana.

A separate trial on corruption and illegal wiretapping charges is also planned against him. In December 2007, Fujimori was convicted and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment on charges of abuse of power in another case.

Legally relevant facts

Alberto Fujimori was the President of Peru between 1990 and 2000.

Court's holding and analysis

On 7 April 2009, the Special Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Peru found him guilty of murder and illegal detention as crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to 25 years' imprisonment. He had been on trial for more than 15 months, accused of charges including the killing of 15 individuals in Barrios Altos in 1991 and 10 in La Cantuta in 1992 as well as the illegal detention of the journalist Gustavo Gorriti and the businessman Samuel Dyer in 1992. The death-squad massacres took place at the height of Fujimori’s government conflict with the Shining Path guerrilla. The televised “mega-trial” is the first time a democratically-elected Latin American leader has been tried in his own country for human rights abuses.