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Peru Issues International Arrest Warrant for Fujimori
Peru issued an international arrest warrant on Thursday for ousted President Alberto Fujimori, exiled in Japan, on charges of human rights abuses, Supreme Court judge Jose Luis Lecaros said.
Peru hopes the charges on the alleged role in two death squad massacres in the early 1990s, will pave the way for the former president's eventual extradition from Tokyo, where he has lived in exile since last November when his 10-year government collapsed under the weight of mounting corruption scandals.
Lecaros said the request was based on charges of murder, serious injury and forced disappearance in relation to two massacres, one in 1991 and the other in 1992, by an army death squad. He said the order would be passed to the international police agency, Interpol.
The order follows Attorney General Nelly Calderon's filling charges on September 5 alleging that Fujimori "co-authored" the two killings and "knew in detail the operations" of the La Colina paramilitary death squad. Fujimori could face up to 25 years in prison.
Fujimori fled to his parents' native Japan in November when his rule collapsed. He was granted citizenship shortly after he arrived. Japanese law prohibits the extradition of its citizens to stand trial for crimes committed in other countries.
No extradition treaty exists between the two countries and Japanese officials have repeatedly said they have no intention of forcing his return. It was not immediately clear if Interpol in Tokyo would act on the Lecaros' order if Japan, as its host country, was opposed to Fujimori's arrest.
In 1991, the 35-strong Grupo Colina army death squad, which was set up during Peru's fight against leftist rebels, killed 15 people during a party and in 1992, it kidnapped and executed nine students and a professor from La Cantuta university.
The murder of the 15 party-goers, including an eight-year-old boy, mistaken for rebels in the Barrios Altos district of Lima, is considered one of the worst atrocities committed under the 1990- 2000 rule of Fujimori.
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