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BBC.com
Candace Piette

For Francisco Soberon, a leading human rights activist and director of the Pro Human Rights Association in Peru, the impact of Fujimori's trial cannot be underestimated.

He believes that it will have an educational effect and thus strengthen Peruvian democracy.

"This will help Peruvians to evaluate what the regime was like under President Fujimori and his spy master, Vladimir Montesinos, in relation to corruption and human rights so that the common sense of Peruvians will start to change. And they will recover their principles," says Mr Soberon.

But the outcome of the trial may also have an impact on the political landscape in Peru, especially with elections coming up in 2011.

There is speculation that it might strengthen the cause of Alberto Fujimori's party, the Fujimorista, in congress as they redouble their efforts not only to get better prison conditions for their chief but also to get him released.

Other analysts have speculated about whether President Alan Garcia might wade in to support a Fujimorist candidate and to support the campaign to release Alberto Fujimori.

Mr. Garcia's first administration governed during one of the darkest periods of human rights abuses in Peruvian recent history in the 1980s during the most violent part of the fight against the Shining Path.

Human rights activists have said that President García has much to hide too and probably would not like a trial like the one Mr Fujimori was subjected to.

(BBCNews.com)

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