Peru cleaning house on Fujimori era

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As former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori awaits trial, his former aides also face a legal reckoning.

A court this week sentenced 10 ministers from Fujimori’s government for their roles in helping Fujimori shut down Congress and suspend the constitution in their boss’ 1992 autogolpe, or self-coup.

The severest penalty was meted upon former Interior Minister Juan Briones Davila, who received a 10-year prison term. Nine other ex-Cabinet members each received suspended sentences of four years, Peruvian media reported.

Fujimori’s most notorious collaborator, ex-intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, has long been imprisoned on a wide range of graft and other accusations.

Fujimori, who was extradited back to Peru from neighboring Chile in September, is to stand trial later this month on human rights and corruption charges. His tumultuous, 10-year rule ended when he fled the country in 2000 and went into exile in Japan, his parents’ homeland.

Fujimori said he shut down Congress and ditched the constitution in a bid to restore order amid a violent leftist insurgency. Peruvians initially backed Fujimori’s hard-line response. But support eventually waned for Fujimori’s authoritarian ways.

Human rights advocates and others have applauded the prosecutions of Fujimori and his former aides as blows against impunity. But Fujimori supporters, including his daughter Keiko, a popular congresswoman here, have deplored the cases as mean-spirited outbursts of revenge.

Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell in Lima