Peru court orders release of ex-president Fujimori

LIMA

Peru's Constitutional Court on Dec. 5 ordered the release of former president Alberto Fujimori, 85, who was serving a 25-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity committed on his watch.

A court ruling seen by AFP ordered the "immediate" release under supervision of Fujimori, who was president from 1990 to 2000. The ruling reinstates an earlier pardon.

Fujimori has been jailed since 2009 over massacres committed by army death squads in 1991 and 1992 in which 25 people, including a child, were killed in supposed anti-terrorist operations.

In February, Fujimori was admitted to hospital suffering from an irregular heartbeat.

He suffers recurrent respiratory, neurological and hypertension problems and has had tongue cancer.

Tuesday's ruling reinstated a pardon granted to the ex-president for humanitarian reasons in 2017 but revoked by the Supreme Court two years later.

Last year, the Constitutional Court again ordered his release on humanitarian grounds, but the Inter-American Court of Human Rights urged Peru not to free him, and Lima agreed.

Fujimori was impeached in November 2000 on grounds of "moral incapacity" and was accused of corruption.

The previous day he had fled to Japan, where his parents were from, and resigned by fax. He later went to Chile, from where he was extradited in 2007.

Tuesday's ruling cannot be appealed.