Living in Peru : your everyday companion

(LIP-jl) -- Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, in Chile for the past 18 months awaiting the outcome of his extradition trial, denied on Wednesday that he planned to seek political asylum at the Japanese Embassy in Santiago if the Chilean court judge ruled against him.

Rumors that the wily 68-year-old is planning to seek asylum have grown in recent weeks, fueled in part by his move from a house in the Chilean capital to an apartment that is located just five minutes away from the Japanese Embassy.

In an interview with Reuters yesterday, Fujimori, accused by Peru of embezzling $15 million and of using excessive anti-terrorism measures during his 1990-2000 rule, said the rumors were unwarranted.

"They are totally unfounded. They don't make any sense," said Fujimori, who fled Peru for Japan in 2000 to avoid prosecution when his second term in office collapsed in a huge corruption scandal. In November 2005, he surprisingly landed in Chile, apparently to resurrect his political career in Peru and was detained on an international arrest warrant.

"That would be like thinking I had crossed the entire Pacific Ocean to get to Chile simply to say that I was going to return to Japan. It's not logical, and I'm always driven by logic," Fujimori said.

Chilean media reports said the former president was suspiciously in the proximity of the Japanese Embassy yesterday.

"They say that today I was close to the (Japanese) embassy, but I wasn't. I was doing my shopping in the supermarket," Fujimori responded.

Chile's public prosecutor Monica Maldonado is due to make a non-binding recommendation to Judge Orlando Alvarez sometime this month. Alvarez will then issue his verdict which will be open to appeal.

"I am waiting in total calm, and with a clean conscience having acted correctly during my tenure," Fujimori said.

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	Peru's Fujimori plans to escape, says Chilean newspaper (by LIP, 23 April, 2007)
	Back to Peru? Fujimori case to wrap up in May (by LIP, 16 April, 2007)
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