Features

February 25, 2009

Q&A: The Trial of Alberto Fujimori

Prosecutors and defense attorneys expect the Special Criminal Chamber of Peru's Supreme Court to issue its verdict in the trial of former president Alberto Fujimori in mid-March. Fujimori is on trial for human rights offenses that include kidnappings and murders carried out by a military death squad. He is the first former head of state in Latin America to be extradited and brought to trial for human rights violations.

1. Why is Alberto Fujimori on trial?
Alberto Fujimori, president of Peru between 1990 and 2000, is the only former Latin American head of state to be extradited and brought to trial in a national court on charges of human rights violations and corruption. During his three terms as president, Fujimori used "disappearances" and torture as part of his strategy against insurgents, harassed the political opposition, seriously infringed on the independence of other branches of government, and became the center of a complex web of corruption. Though his government initially had several major successes - it restored economic stability and, through careful police work, captured the leader of the Shining Path guerrilla movement, Abimael Guzmán - his regime collapsed when the public began to hold him responsible for massive human rights violations and widespread corruption.

2. When did he resign as president, and how did he come to be extradited to Peru?
In November 2000, six months after his election to a third four-year term,  Fujimori left a trade summit of the Pacific Rim nations in the Southeast Asian state of Brunei and took refuge in Japan. From there, he faxed a letter of resignation as president. In 2005, when he unexpectedly traveled to Chile, authorities there detained him and then extradited him to Peru, where he faced charges related to corruption and human rights abuses.

3. What charges does he face in his current trial?
He is charged with responsibility for three crimes:

• The Barrios Altos massacre: On Nov. 3, 1991, members of a death squad known as the Colina group killed 15 civilians attending a social event. Members of the Colina group were military intelligence officers.
• La Cantuta dissapearances: On July 18, 1992, members of the Colina group kidnapped a professor and nine students at Lima's La Cantuta University, two days after a Shining Path bombing in the capital. Journalists later found unmarked graves of some of the victims; the human remains showed signs that the victims had been tortured.
• Kidnappings and illegal detentions in the army intelligence service offices (known as Sotanos SIE): In 1992, members of the army illegally abducted journalist Gustavo Gorritti and businessman Samuel Dyer. They were later released.

Fujimori's human rights trial began on Dec. 10, 2007. It is being held in a Special Criminal Chamber of Peru´s Supreme Court and is being heard by three justices. The court is expected to return a verdict by late March. After a verdict is announced, the parties have the right to appeal before another five-member panel of the Supreme Court.

4. What charges does Fujimori face in other trials?
The former president is also facing charges of corruption and abuse of authority in five other cases. The charges include alleged illegal phone tapping of the opposition, bribery of members of Congress, embezzlement of state funds for illegal purposes and transfer of public funds to his chief advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos. Fujimori has already been found guilty in a case involving an illegal search and seizure and has been sentenced to six years imprisonment.

5. What are the prosecution's arguments against Fujimori in the human rights case?
Prosecutors contend that Fujimori used his position as head of state and supreme leader of the armed forces to take actions that led to the creation of the Colina Group, which committed the crimes of which he is being accused. Prosecutors say Fujimori is responsible for the criminal actions of the Colina Group.

6. What is Fujimori's defense?
César Nakasaki, Fujimori's defense counsel, argues first that Fujimori as president made decisions only through written directives. He says there is no formal evidence of written orders to use illegal tactics in the country's battle against insurgents, and thus that Fujimori is innocent. Fujimori also maintains that official documents show that he relied on strategies respectful of human rights. Defense counsel maintains that Fujimori did not exert operational command over the planning and execution of the criminal acts attributed to the Colina Group.

7. What is the position of the victims?
The victims' representatives have emphasized the systematic nature of Fujimori's alleged crimes. The victims' representatives have submitted to the court documentary evidence including the final report of the Peruvian Truth Commission (which completed its investigations in 2003) and case records from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights showing State responsibility and the direct responsibility of the ex-president for human rights abuses. Victims' agents have been able to present evidence and question and cross-examine all witnesses. 

8. When will the current trial conclude?
The judges, prosecutors and defense counsel expect the court to announce its verdict in late March. If the court finds Fujimori guilty, the prosecution has asked the judges to sentence him to 30-years imprisonment.

9. If Fujimori is found guilty, could he then be pardoned?
If the court finds Fujimori guilty, the country's president can issue a pardon. However, international law and the jurisprudence of the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal prohibit pardons or amnesties in cases of human rights violations, and a pardon in this case would have serious legal and political consequences for the current government.

Background

What is the Colina Group?
The Colina Group was a death squad formed by members of the Army Intelligence Service, created by Vladimiro Montesinos, the president's intelligence chief. Some members of the Colina Group received medals directly from Fujimori. The group operated clandestinely and carried out extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

What is the case of Barrios Altos?
The Barrios Altos case involves the killing of 15 persons on Nov. 3, 1991, at a home in a neighborhood of downtown Lima. A dozen armed, hooded men entered a home where 19 persons were holding a party to collect funds, and indiscriminately fired at the revelers. Other criminal investigations found that members of the Peruvian army belonging to the Colina Group conducted the raid. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Peruvian state internationally responsible for the murders and for the lack of investigation.

What is La Cantuta case?
It centers on the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of nine students and a professor of the Enrique Guzmán y Valle National University, known as La Cantuta, on July 18, 1992. Members of the Colina Group forcibly entered university residences and illegally detained nine students. Soldiers later forcefully removed a professor from his home. The captives were tortured and murdered, their bodies buried clandestinely and covered with lime in three graves near Lima. The perpetrators later exhumed and incinerated the bodies and reinterred the remains in new clandestine graves. These graves were discovered by the media and the bodies were subsequently identified as the disappeared students and professor.

What is the Sotanos SIE case?
The Army Intelligence Service (SIE) used the basements of its offices as clandestine detention centers where alleged members of subversive organizations and political opponents were tortured and in some cases executed during Fujimori's administration. Investigators found that Fujimori was aware of these activities. Peru's request that Chile extradite Fujimori was based on those findings.

What are the other cases that implicate Fujimori?
Fujimori has been found guilty and sentenced to six years imprisonment for ordering the illegal search of the home of the wife of Montesinos, his chief advisor. The search was conducted to hide evidence that could incriminate the former president. Fujimori had a military officer under his direct orders pose as a prosecutor and conduct the search. The courts convicted Fujimori of abuse of authority. 
After the human rights trial concludes, Fujimori will stand trial for four corruption-related cases:

§         Case of the $15 million: Fujimori allegedly illegally diverted $15 million from the Ministry of Defense to Montesinos as compensation for his services. Fujimori is charged with embezzlement.

§         The congressmen case: Public funds were allegedly used to bribe 13 congressmen to join the president's political party and thus secure a majority in Congress inmediately after Fujimori's re-election in 2000. Montesinos has testified that he paid the congressmen on Fujimori's orders. Fujimori is charged with corruption of government officials.

§         Wiretapping: This case refers to the alleged illegal wiretapping of telephones of journalists, politicians and political opponents. Fujimori is charged with phone tapping and embezzlement.

§         Media: Fujimori is accused of  using public funds to purchase Cable Channel CCN - Channel 10 - and to sway the editorial line of the Expreso Newspaper. In both cases he is charged with embezzlement.

Why were the perpetrators of these crimes, including Fujimori, not prosecuted earlier?
In 1995, Fujimori's government successfully introduced legislation granting a broad amnesty and then prohibited judges and prosecutors from investigating these events, ostensibly to promote national reconciliation. In 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that those measures were illegal. Only then could authorities prosecute the former president.

What has happened to Vladimiro Montesinos?
Peruvian courts convicted Montesinos on corruption charges and for human rights violations. In February 2008, the Peruvian Supreme Court upheld a verdict finding him responsible for the illegal sale of weapons to the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and his being sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. The former presidential advisor and de facto director of the National Intelligence Service isimprisoned in the Maximum Security Prison at the Callao Navy Base, the same military facilities where Abimael Guzmán Reinoso and Victor Polay Campos, leaders of the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement guerrilla groups, respectively, are held.