| Monday, November 12, 2001, updated at 14:14(GMT+8) |
Peru Legislator Says Fujimori Stole US$1 Billion |
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Disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori may have fled Peru with US$1 billion in cash, securities and gold bars stolen from the central bank, a top legislator was quoted as saying on Saturday.
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Disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori may have fled Peru with US$1 billion in cash, securities and gold bars stolen from the central bank, a top legislator was quoted as saying on Saturday.
David Waisman, head of a congressional commission probing graft under Fujimori's decade-long rule which ended in November, said the former president and his fugitive ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos may have each run their own corruption network, worth a total of US$2 billion.
Fujimori fled to Tokyo last November at the height of a scandal sparked by a video of Montesinos offering a bribe to an opposition legislator. In an unprecedented move, he was promptly fired by Congress as "morally unfit" to rule.
Although criminal proceedings have already begun against him for dereliction of duty, Fujimori has refused to return home and is protected by dual nationality. Japan does not as a rule extradite its own citizens.
Waisman said the money embezzled by Fujimori was stashed in bank accounts in several Asian countries, including Japan. The likelihood of recovering it within five months "is very high", he said.
A public prosecutor investigating the Montesinos case has said he will present charges against Fujimori on Monday for the illicit use of state funds.
This would be the most serious accusation leveled to date against the 62-year-old former president, and the first charges linking him with the illegal network of the once-feared Montesinos, now Latin America's most wanted man.
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