PERU: Fujimori Definitely a Flight Risk, Say Lawyers

By Ángel Páez Reprint | | Print |

Angel Páez

LIMA, May 18 2006 (IPS) - The likelihood is high that former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori will leave Chile to escape possible extradition to Peru, warned prosecutor Antonio Maldonado, commenting on the Chilean Supreme Court’s unappealable decision to release him on bail.

“Now that he is free to move around, Fujimori could climb into an embassy vehicle from a friendly country, drive to the embassy, and leave Chile,” said Maldonado. He was referring to Japan, where the former president lived in exile for five years after he was removed from office by Congress in 2000.

The Peruvian prosecutor said he regretted Thursday’s court ruling, which set bail for Fujimori – who has been held in jail in Santiago for six months – at 3,000 dollars and released him on the condition that he must not leave Chile.

Maldonado disagrees with the Chilean Supreme Court, which ruled that the former president (1990-2000) does not represent a flight risk. He argues that Fujimori’s past behaviour indicates just the contrary.

The prosecutor noted that when a group of democratic-minded military officers attempted to stage a coup d’etat on Nov. 13, 1992, Fujimori took refuge in the Japanese ambassador’s residence, which he only left after the putsch had been put down.

“The Chilean state has assumed a huge responsibility, and must take the necessary measures (to keep Fujimori from fleeing). He wouldn’t even need to leave Chile. All he would have to do is take refuge in a friendly country’s embassy – something that he has already done,” said Maldonado.

He also pointed out that in November 2000, after a scandal was triggered by a video recording leaked to the press that showed the then president’s security chief Vladimiro Montesinos paying a bribe to a member of Congress, Fujimori took advantage of an official trip to Brunei to fly to Japan, from where he faxed his resignation.

The former president then assumed Japanese nationality (his parents were Japanese) and remained in that country, thus evading trial in Peru on multiple charges of corruption and human rights abuses.

But Fujimori unexpectedly flew to Chile on Nov. 7, 2005, where he was arrested within hours of his arrival, after Peru lodged an extradition request.

According to Maldonado, the former president’s aim in flying to Chile was not to submit himself to Peruvian justice but to organise a movement in order to run for president in the April elections.

“There is undoubtedly a potential risk of flight,” agreed Iván Montoya, the head of the extradition unit in the public prosecutor’s office.

Gloria Cano, a lawyer with Peru’s Human Rights Association, which represents relatives of the victims of the “Colina” paramilitary group, that allegedly acted under orders from Fujimori, underlined that the former president has habitually avoided the courts.

“Fujimori has systematically demonstrated a tendency to flee justice, and of course he will try to take advantage of his newfound freedom to escape to Japan,” said Cano.

Although he recognised that Fujimori’s release on bail was bad news for the Peruvian justice system, Maldonado stressed that the Supreme Court ruling would not affect the actual extradition proceedings because it made no pronouncement on the evidence presented against the former president.

“The resolution does not contain a single word on the accusations against Fujimori. It only addresses his defence counsel’s request that he be granted conditional release,” he said.

In a news briefing, Peruvian Justice Minister Alejandro Tudela was asked if Fujimori’s release represented a defeat for justice in Peru. “It does not affect the extradition process,” he responded. “The order for his release makes no reference to the content of the extradition files.”

Fujimori’s defence attorney César Nakasaki, however, said the ruling “has a decisive effect on the extradition process.”

“We are confident that all of the legal guarantees will be fulfilled, and if they are, Mr. Fujimori will be freed from the extradition process, because it is based on unfounded charges,” said Nakasaki.

The lawyer added that the former president had no plans to leave Chile, and was prepared to answer to all charges.

In Lima, Fujimori’s followers celebrated at the news of their leader’s release on bail. In the first round of presidential elections on Apr. 9, Fujimori’s supporters won 15 seats in Congress.

Keiko Fujimori, the former president’s daughter, who served as first lady when her father separated from his first wife, will fly to Santiago to meet with her father. Of all legislative candidates competing in the April elections, Keiko took the largest number of votes – more than half a million.

“As President Fujimori’s daughter, today is one of my happiest days in years, seeing my father freed. But I say that without any sense of triumphalism, because the extradition proceedings continue,” said Keiko, standing next to her uncle, legislator-elect Santiago Fujimori, who faces corruption charges involving the purchase of a Boeing 737 for his brother Alberto while he was president.

“I am confident, and I will be patient,” said Alberto Fujimori when he left prison Thursday. “I came here voluntarily, and I am leaving just as I came.”

“Fujimori is still a danger to society and to the victims of his government,” said Tudela. “We are confident that, based on the evidence in the extradition files, Fujimori will be repatriated so that he can stand trial.”

The most serious charge faced by the former Peruvian president involves two massacres in which a total of 25 people – including a young boy – were killed. The murders were committed in Lima in 1991 and 1992 by the Colina army death squad.

He is also accused of illicit association to commit crimes and of embezzling 15 million dollars for his former security chief Montesinos – now in prison in Peru, accused of running a vast network of corruption – who fled to Panama when the corruption scandal that brought down the Fujimori regime broke out.

Tudela said he had asked Chilean lawyer Alfredo Etcheverry, who is representing the Peruvian state in the extradition process, “to do everything necessary to speed up the extradition request, so that Fujimori is in Peru by Jul. 28,” when the new president takes office.

Centre-left former President Alan García will face nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala, a former lieutenant colonel, in Peru’s Jun. 4 runoff.

Etcheverry concurred that there is “a real danger of flight by Fujimori,” and that now that he is free, “the already high probability that he will flee is even higher.”

“The way Fujimori arrived in Chile is a demonstration of that danger,” he added.

Despite an Interpol warrant for his arrest, Fujimori got around the controls at the international airports in Tokyo, Tijuana (Mexico), and Santiago, and easily slipped into Chile.