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The daughter of Peru's former dictator Alberto Fujimori stated Sunday that her father will soon be released from prison because he never kidnapped anyone and yet was sentenced, in 2009, to 25 years in prison over charges of serious human rights violations during his 10-year term.
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Keiko Fujimori, who ran a failed presidential campaign in 2016, reported at a meeting in San Juan de Lurigancho district that the second superior court in Lima agreed to review the habeas corpus meant to release her father from jail, which she presented after it was rejected by a previous court.
She explained that she was hoping to prove that her “father was unfairly sent to prison,” because he “has never kidnapped anyone, nor carried out a kidnapping under aggravating circumstances as it was claimed,” she added in an interview with Canal N.
About ten days earlier, a court rejected the habeas corpus writ, introduced in a bid to obtain Fujimori's release, finding that his rights had not been violated.
Fujimori's lawyers argue that the dictator could not be sentenced for ordering kidnappings because the trial of the people who allegedly took his orders was still ongoing.
The decision comes as right-wing President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has considered granting the dictator a pardon.
During his rule, Fujimori committed crimes such as the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, the approval of death squads that committed murders and kidnappings of opponents and leftists leaders. He was seen as a man who headed an authoritarian regime hidden behind alleged “economic growth” and a tireless struggle against "terrorism."
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