Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori’s lawyer hopes his client will be released from prison this Wednesday when related administrative procedures are completed, and on Tuesday the Constitutional Court ordered his immediate release.

The 85-year-old Fujimori suffers from several health problems, such as tongue cancer, atrial fibrillation, lung disease and high blood pressure.

Since 2009, Fujimori has been serving a sentence for “crimes against humanity” in Barbadillo Prison, a small prison for former presidents east of Lima, for the deaths of 25 people in two massacres carried out by an army unit in 1991-1992 .

Fujimori was extradited from Chile, where he had fled.

Although there are other cases for which justice wants him to return to court, Fujimori served a 25-year prison sentence for the cases known as La Cantuta, referring to the disappearance of nine students and a professor at said university in 1992 ; and the massacre of 15 people in Barrios Altos in 1991. In addition to the kidnappings of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel Dyer Ampudia.

Massacre of Barrios Altos

This case concerns the murder of 25 people, who were wrongly linked to the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso. An 8-year-old child was among the dead. Four others were injured. The attackers were later identified as members of Grupo Colina, a paramilitary detachment made up of members of the armed forces.

La Cantuta

This massacre occurred on July 18, 1992, when a university professor and nine students from the Enrique Guzmán y Valle National University of Education (known as La Cantuta), located on the outskirts of Lima, were kidnapped and murdered by the Colina Group.

Instant freedom

Peru’s Constitutional Court ordered Fujimori’s release on Tuesday, despite the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordering the opposite last year.

The resolution, which was signed by three of the current six members of the TC, with the casting vote of the organization’s president, Francisco Morales, stated that “the call for reconsideration was founded on the end of the direct and immediate implementation of the TC. judgment of March 12 last, a setback in the current trial.”

Cases that need to be tried

On the legal front, the Peruvian justice confirmed in January 2020 that Fujimori should be tried for the ‘Pativilca case’, in which the Colina group is held responsible for the murder of six community leaders from that city in the north of the Lima region.

Last December, another court ruled that the former president should be tried on charges of forced sterilizations committed during his regime. Therefore, a request to extend his extradition from Chile was awaited. (JO)