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Dossiers | 19 May, 2006 [ 15:37 ]

Alberto Fujimori arrested and held in Chile. - A Chronology

May 19th, 2006:

Alberto Fujimori told reporters this morning that he has no intentions whatsoever to flee from Chile and he will wait for the ruling of the Chilean justice system on his pending extradition in his home in the suburbs of Santiago.
“I feel satisfied with the freedom that has been granted to me. I waited for this moment with much patience. To assume that I would flee is totally unwarranted”, he affirmed in interview with a Chilean newspaper. “I am very calm and I very much trust my lawyers in dealing with this long process”, he added.
In a separate interview, he insisted on his innocence and assured that he will demonstrate that all the accusations in his case are false.
He cooked dinner last night with his daughter Sachi in his first night out of jail and is waiting for the arrival of his other children, Keiko and Kenji, with whome he will celebrate their 24th birthdays. He plans to spend his time cooking, gardening and playing guitar during the extradition process, the newspaper said.

more reactions:
- Presidential candidate Alan Garcia assured that freeing Fujimori on bail "does not have any relevance for the subjects of the country". The aprista leader believes that the decision of the Chilean Supreme Court does not mean a defeat for Peruvian justice and emphasized that "it is not necessary to be alarmed by this news".

- Ollanta Humala, presidential candidate of UPP, also tried to downplay the news and that the Peruvian justice system is responsible to deal with this matter, not the candidates. “This is the news that evidently has many Peruvians worried. If Fujimori wants to return to the country, the judicial powers are responsible and will have to deal with them. We do not politicize the subject”, he said. "I will obtain more information and then make an announcement. Until then, we should remain calm”, he added.

- Chilean president Michelle Bachelet said that the provisional freedom granted to ex-Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori while judgment on his extradition is still pending, is a decision of the courts and not of the government.
"It is necessary to make it very clear that this is a decision of the Supreme Court, of the judicial system in Chile. The government of Chile does not have any relation with this decision. As you know and as is traditional: the government does not interfere with the decisions of justice, which is an independent Power of the State”, she insisted. In addition, Bachelet assured that in respect to the Fujimori situation she has not maintained any contacts with Peruvian authorities.

- The Peruvian ambassador to Chile, Jose Antonio Meier has asked the Chilean government to provide guarantees so that Alberto Fujimori does not take advantage of this situation and escape and to avoid measures that can harm the bilateral relations.
The diplomat had meetings with the Chilean minister of Foreign Relations, Alexander Foxley and with Interior minister, Andrés Zaldívar, in order to express the preoccupation of the government and the population of Peru, since the decision of the Supreme Court increases the possibilities that Fujimori can evade the process. Meier said that he stressed to the Chilean government that Peru trusts that decisions are made and measures are taken to keep an eye on Fujimori. He added that the embassy will also do its own surveillance.


May 18th, 2006:

The former president of Peru is going free from jail while fighting extradition from Chile on corruption and human rights charges.
A Supreme Court panel in Chile says Alberto Fujimori can be released on bail, but that he can't leave Chile.
The panel voted four votes in favor and one against, reverting thereby the decision of judge Orlando Alvarez, who is in charge of Fujimori's extradition process. He had previously ordered that the ex-president remained in jail and repeatedly denied granting him conditional freedom.
Fujmori's daughter Keiko, who won a seat in Peru's next congress, said she was very happy about the news and plans to travel to Santiago de Chile within the next hours to see her father.
A panel of the Chilean Supreme Court then determined that the Peruvian ex-president has to deposit a guarantee US$ 2, 830. which was immediately paid by his legal counsil.
Fujimori left the Chilean jail accompanied by his Chilean lawyers Gabriel Zaliasnik and Francisco Veloso.
"I am obviously happy and satisfied with the decision of the superior court. As you can see I am leaving in the same condition in which I arrived. I'm confident and I'll have patience," a smiling Fujimori, dressed in a dark suit, told dozens of reporters outside the Prison Guard Academy in Santiago. He then drove off to his new house located in East Santiago, 40 minutes from downtown. His lawyers indicated that he will not give any further statements today.
The judges of the court believe that his liberty does not represent a danger either to society or to the victims and will not hinder the case.

In first reactions by Peruvian state officials and lawyers the argument was made that he is a flight risk and that granting him bail is a mistake. "This ruling raises the possibility for Fujimori to escape," said Alfredo Etcheberry, a lawyer for the Peruvian government.
"It is up to the Chilean authorities to ensure that Alberto Fujimori stays in Santiago and does not flee like he did in Peru and in Japan ... to ensure he does not interfere in Peru's June 4 presidential election", a surprised Ronald Gamarra, Peru's state anti-corruption prosecutor, said.
Peruvian chancellor Oscar Maúrtua does not believe that this new development will have any affect on the final result of the ongoing extradition process. In an official notice, he said that he is corresponding with the Special Commission of Extraditions to create a precise analysis with respect to this 'judicial failure'.
Finally, he indicated that the Peruvian government trusts that the competent authorities of Chile will adopt the measures that are necessary to prevent that the ex- president furtively leaves the Chilean territory just like he left Japan last November.


April 18th, 2006:

The Supreme Court of Argentina ruled in favor of extraditing peruvian television industralists José Francisco and José Enrique Crosuillat, both wanted by Peruvian justice for their bond with Fujimori's ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos. They are accused of the crimes of "peculado, illicit association to break the law and corruption of civil employees". Both appear in the so-called 'vladivideos' receiving money in the millions.
The Argentine lawyer who represents the Peruvian state, Hugo Wortman, indicated that the ex-directors of 'América Televisión' could be transferred to Lima within ten days.
Peru ordered the capture of the two TV moguls in February 2001 after a video spread in which they were seen receiving money from Montesinos, supposedly in exchange for putting the channel in favor of the government of Alberto Fujimori.

April 6th, 2006 - Side Note:

Alberto Fujimori married his Japanese sweetheart Thursday by filing legal documents in Japan, a spokesman for the woman's company said.
Representatives of Fujimori and longtime friend Satomi Kataoka, owner of Tokyo's upscale Hotel Princess Garden, filed a marriage registration for the couple in the Japanese capital, said hotel spokesman Tetsuo Matsui.
In Japan, couples are officially married once the registration has been submitted to a municipal office. Kataoka resides in the Tokyo area.
Ms Kataoka has now travelled to Peru for the country's presidential and congressional elections on Sunday, where her stepdaughter, Keiko Fujimori, is running for Congress. She looks likely to win a seat in Congress that she hopes to use to try to clear her father's name.

April 4th, 2006:

Peru's Minister of Justice Alejandro Tudela prematurely announces that former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori will be extradited from Chile to Peru to face corruption and human rights charges before this summer. Tudela said the extradition would be completed before Peru's current administration leaves office in July.

April 3rd, 2006 - Side note:

The daughter of Alberto Fujimori looks likely to win a seat in Congress this weekend that she hopes to use to try to clear her father's name.
Polls show that Keiko Fujimori, who acted as first lady for her father when she was just 19, is the most popular congressional candidate from Lima and would likely win one of the 35 seats from the capital. The legislature has 120 seats.
Keiko Fujimori, a charismatic 30-year-old, would receive 14.3 percent of votes for Congress in the April 9 election, enough to make victory likely given the size of the pool of candidates, according to a poll done on March 15-19 by Peru's respected CPI agency. The poll was released on Monday.

March 30, 2006:

Amnesty International and Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos del Peru, the National Human Rights Coordinating Body of Peru, revealed today that over 20,000 people from all over the world had joined the international campaign to ensure that the case against Alberto Fujimori is resolved promptly.
The signatures – from countries including England, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Peru – are part of a set of signatures which will be presented to the Chilean courts in the near future.
"The 20,000 signatures represent 20,000 victims of the armed conflict in Peru. The only thing these victims received from Fujimori was torture, death and impunity," Amnesty International said.
"It is crucial for Peru’s future that Fujimori is tried for the crimes against humanity of which he is accused. A Peru without justice is a country without a future," said the Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos.
"The struggle against impunity must be pursued not only by relatives who are committed to the question of justice but by all societies who understand and support the issue. Only in this way will be able to punish human rights violators," said Gisella Ortiz, sister of Luis Enrique Ortiz Perea, one of the victims of the massacre that took place at La Cantuta University.
"No one with a modicum of moral sensitivity can remain indifferent to these cases," said Jaime Beneyto, an Amnesty International volunteer in Spain, as he signed the petition.
"What made me sign is that personally I feel it is ridiculous that crimes of this kind can go unpunished," said Edurne de la Hera, a cyberactivist from Spain.
"I joined the campaign because I believe that crimes against humanity should be punished so that these kinds of acts, which wound the very conscience of humanity, will never again be committed," said Pablo Arenales, a Colombian human rights defender.
"The campaign will continue until all victims of human rights violations in Peru receive justice and reparation," said Amnesty International.

March 28, 2006:

The Chilean judge examining Peru's request for the extradition of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori will ask Japan to provide judicial documents detailing exchanges between Japan and Peru on the same request, the secretariat of Chile's Supreme Court said Tuesday.
The decision was made in response to a request by Fujimori's lawyers, who claim the Japanese documents will show Peru failed to provide convincing evidence to grant an extradition request.

March 21, 2006:

1) The campaign for the re-election of ex- president Alberto Fujimori in the last decade cost more than 4 million dollars, money that was taken from the public treasury (Ministry of Defense and the National Intelligence Service). Those were the established results in the closing report of expert investigators, which was presented today before the the Superior Court of Justice in Lima.

2) The Peruvian government will present a writ to the Chilean judge Orlando Álvarez in order to refute the arguments of former president Alberto Fujimori, prosecutor Antonio Maldonado informed. “We want to express the position of the Peruvian government in front of Fujimori’s declarations. Furthermore we are interested in specifying the points to be discussed in this process”.
During the interrogations Fujimori said he was innocent of all the charges presented by the Peruvian justice, he did not remember the corruption cases nor the violations of human rights during his regime. When he was asked about the massacres of Barrios Altos and La Cantuta, he answered that he heard on the radio about the first one and he read in a local newspaper about the second one. He added that he ignored the theft of public funds and the payment of millionaire “gifts” (coimas) for the purchase of weapons.

March 18, 2006:

A U.S. lawyer hired to track down hidden assets of Augusto Pinochet said on Thursday that he had identified more than $100 million in bank accounts linked to the former Chilean dictator.
"It's in excess of $100 million to be sure," said Pedro Martinez-Fraga of the Miami-based Greenberg Traurig law firm. He had been following the money trail of Pinochet for a year and a half after being hired for the job by the Chilean government. Chile's courts have since found more than a hundred accounts linked to Pinochet under different names.
Martinez-Fraga said he expected to be hired soon to look into whether funds were stashed in secret bank accounts by ex-Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and his notorious former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos.
"It would be an inquiry into Fujimori and Montesinos," he said. "The government of Chile recommended my services," he added without elaborating.

March 12, 2006 - Side note:

Alberto Fujimori will wed his longtime Japanese girlfriend in the coming weeks, a spokesman for the ex-leader said Sunday. Satomi Kataoka, a Japanese hotel magnate, announced at a Lima disco Saturday night that she will marry Fujimori before Peru's April 9 elections.

February 21, 2006:

Chile's Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a request from Fujimori's lawyers for his release on bail.
The ruling by the Supreme Court makes it likely Fujimori will be held in custody in Chile for a long period of time because it will take six months to a year before the court reaches a final conclusion after deliberations.

January 31, 2006:

Fujimori was questioned by a Chilean judge today, the first of many such meetings as Chile decides if it will extradite him to face corruption and human rights charges at home.
"This will be the first of various interrogations," court spokesman Miguel Gonzales told reporters.
Orlando Alvarez, the Supreme Court judge handling the Fujimori case, must examine 12 boxes of evidence against the former leader before recommending for or against extradition to Peru.
The court spokesman said Fujimori was questioned for four hours on Tuesday.

January 27, 2006:

Peru's national election commission has rejected an objection a group of Fujimori supporters had filed against the commission's final decision to ban him from running in the presidential election in April, Peruvian newspapers reported Friday.

January 9, 2006:

The Electoral Court rejected Mr Fujimori's candidacy on Sunday, two days after his daughter registered him for the April 9 election, and a day before the deadline to enter the race, which falls Monday at midnight, Peruvian media reported.
The court will announce its ruling officially on Tuesday.

January 6, 2006:

A Supreme Court judge ordered Friday that former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori be held indefinitely pending Chile's consideration of a request from Peru for his extradition.
Judge Orlando Alvarez issued the ruling shortly after receiving the roughly 16,000 pages of documentation submitted by Lima to support its extradition request.
The decision closed the door on the defense's hopes of getting Fujimori freed on bail while Chilean authorities ponder the extradition, but he will be allowed to receive visitors in detention.

January 3, 2006:

Today, Peru formally asked Chile to extradite former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori so he can be tried on human rights and corruption charges. The request was delivered to Chilean Foreign Minister Ignacio Walker by Peruvian Ambassador Jose Antonio Meir and special prosecutor Antonio Maldonado.

The 12 cases compiled by Peru against Fujimori include the death squad killing of 25 people in two incidents known as La Cantuta and Barrios Altos, illegal telephone tapping, diversion of state money to the intelligence service, bribing of politicians, and the transfer of $15 million to Fujimori's spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.

November 22, 2005:

Chile's Supreme Court on Monday upheld a ruling by a lower tribunal rejecting a request to free former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori as he battles to avoid extradition to Peru. The ruling means that he remains under arrest at an academy for corrections officers in Santiago. Last Friday, Peru's Supreme Court approved nine charges for extradition, abuse of power and embezzlement are among the charges. The court will decide next week on whether it should include another round of charges, such as kidnapping and human rights violations. The judges said in a statement that the charges are in line with the 1932 extradition treaty signed between Chile and Peru. The Peruvian government made the request of arresting and extraditing Fujimori to the Chilean Foreign Ministry soon after his arrival in Chile in a private jet from Tokyo via Mexico.Fujimori, born in Peru to Japanese immigrants and was president from 1990 to 2000, fled Peru in November 2000 after a corruption scandal. He faxed his resignation soon after from a Tokyo hotel.Fujimoru is represented by the same Chilean attorneys who successfully represented former Argentinian president Carlos Menem in 2004, who was living in Chile, and faced an extradition request from Argentina to face alleged financial crimes. The Chilean Supreme Court denied Argentina's extradition requests on the grounds that they did not meet legal requirements."

November 7, 2005:

Police in Chile have arrested fugitive Peruvian ex-President Alberto Fujimori just hours after he began a surprise visit to the country. He is wanted in his home country on corruption and human abuse charges.
Although Peruvian warrants for his detention were thought invalid in Chile, a judge ordered his arrest after Peru lodged an extradition request. Mr Fujimori, who denies any wrongdoing, said he was visiting Chile as part of a bid to return to Peru and stand for president in 2006.
He was picked up at a Santiago hotel at 0430 GMT and surrendered without resistance, according to authorities. The Peruvian government is sending a delegation to Chile led by Interior Minister Romulo Pizarro in a bid to speed up Mr Fujimori's extradition. Correspondents say that the former president's arrival in South America was a surprise for both the Chilean and Peruvian governments.
Mr Fujimori had so far preferred to conduct his unofficial electoral campaign from Japan, where he has been living in self-imposed exile. He received Japanese citizenship after fleeing Peru in 2000. Tokyo has repeatedly turned down repeated requests from Lima for his extradition.

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