[News] Fujimori guilty of rights abuses

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Fujimori guilty of rights abuses

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/04/200947133734920332.html

Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru, has been found guilty 
on all charges of murder and kidnapping after a 15-month trial.

The former Peruvian leader was found guilty of ordering two massacres 
and two kidnappings that took place in the 1990s during the country's 
so-called dirty war against the Shining Path rebel group.

In a unanimous verdict comprising more than 600 pages, the panel of 
three judges read the verdict to a packed courtroom in the capital, 
Lima on Tuesday.

"The charges have been proved beyond all reasonable doubt," said 
Cesar San Martin, the chief judge.

It marks the first time a democratically elected Latin American 
leader has been found guilty of rights abuses.

Fujimori, who had repeatedly denied the charges, appeared calm in 
live televised pictures of the courtroom, listening intently as the 
verdict was read out and pausing frequently to take notes.

He is already serving a six-year prison sentence for abuse of power 
in an unrelated case.

Massacres

The verdict related to two massacres, the first committed on November 
3, 1991 when a group of armed and masked soldiers burst into a party 
in the Lima suburb of Barrios Altos, killing 15 people, including an 
eight-year-old boy.

Several months later, nine university students and their professor 
were rounded up by the same "La Colina" squad, taken to a deserted 
area of the city and executed with shots to the back of the head.

Fujimori was found guilty in relation to the the kidnapping of a 
Peruvian journalist working for a Spanish newspaper and a 
businessman, both critics of his government.

Fujimori fled to Tokyo in 2000 while still president amid a deepening 
corruption scandal and sent his resignation letter by fax from his hotel.

Japan considered Fujimori, whose parents were Japanese, to be a 
national and refused to extradite him.

He stayed there for the next five years before flying to Chile in 
2005 where he was arrested. Two years later he was extradited to Peru.




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