The Constitutional Court of Peru ordered the immediate release of Alberto Fujimori
By Sofía Martinez – Alternativa Socialista Peru
The Constitutional Court (TC) of Peru ordered this Tuesday the “immediate” release of former President Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity, and his release was imminent.
“This Constitutional Court orders the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) and the Director of the Barbadillo Prison to order the immediate release of Alberto Fujimori, under responsibility,” indicated the resolution released to the media.
Since 2007, Fujimori has been serving a 25-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity, which was briefly interrupted between 2017 and 2018, when then-president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned him and months later, after long demonstrations and protests, Justice revoked the benefit.
In that sentence, Fujimori was considered the direct perpetrator of malicious murder, aggravated kidnapping and serious injuries in two massacres committed in 1991 and 1992, the one of “Barrios Altos” and the one of “La Cantuta” by the paramilitary group Colina.
Despite being subjected to several trials for various crimes, most of which he was convicted of, Peruvian legislation establishes that if a person receives more than one sentence, he must serve only the longest one.
In October 2018, a tribunal of the Supreme Court declared the non-application of the pardon granted in 2017, so he was subsequently returned to prison.
Since then, judicial appeals have been made seeking his new release.
In March 2022, the TC ordered to restore Fujimori’s pardon, after addressing a habeas corpus appeal. However, after actions carried out by the relatives of Fujimori’s victims, on April 7 of this year the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the Peruvian State not to release the former president.
Last Friday, after three days of polarization and intense media and citizen debate over his possible release, Judge Fernando Vicente Fernández Tapia, in charge of the First Preparatory Investigation Court, had rejected the former president’s release.
Last week, the Inter-American Court required the Peruvian State to report how that resolution was fulfilled. However, the ruling of the TC published this Wednesday considers that the Inter-American Court does not have jurisdiction to order the non-execution of the judicial ruling issued in March of last year.
The Pan-American court’s request was made known one day after the TC rejected a request for clarification from the Ministry of Justice and, thus, left open the possibility of releasing him.
In turn, the Ministry of Justice affirmed last week that the government of President Dina Boluarte will abide by the judge’s decision.
Human rights organizations and relatives of the victims of repression during Alberto Fujimori’s government spoke out regarding the TC’s decision.
“As relatives of victims, we are condemned to live Decembers between anguish, rage and the feeling of being second-class citizens. Our rights are inferior to the undue freedom of a criminal,” said Gisela Ortiz, sister of one of the ten students who disappeared at the university La Cantuta in 1992, who also described the TC ruling as an “unacceptable decision,” he added.
The political situation framing this resolution that grants freedom to Fujimori occurs in the context of a Peru with a government of Dina Boluarte, arising from a parliamentary coup and the repression of protests against that coup, for which the government itself is being judged. The President, who has the Fujimorist bench in Congress as allies, has already expressed her decision to respect the resolution of the Constitutional Court, a condition evidently imposed by Fujimorism to guarantee her support.
A new political crisis is now opening up, and human rights organizations and relatives of the victims of repression are already calling for demonstrations to reject the release of the former president. But also hidden behind this pardon, there are Boluarte’s intentions to guarantee her own impunity and that of Congress, which wants to perpetuate itself despite the 98% disapproval that all surveys register regarding the most corrupt of the system’s institutions.
From Alternativa Socialista, we will accompany these protests and call on workers, students and popular organizations to extend them throughout the country because behind this Pardon there is an insult to our struggle and that of millions of compatriots.