Peru’s Constitutional Court ordered an immediate humanitarian release Tuesday for imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori, 85, who was serving a 25-year sentence in connection with the death squad slayings of 25 Peruvians in the 1990s.
The ruling has sparked a diplomatic dispute with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which Tuesday night requested the state refrain from executing the release order.
The court’s decision comes six years after former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski granted Fujimori a humanitarian pardon, a move that undermined his government. Meanwhile, relatives of the students who died in the death squad killings gathered in front of the Palace of Justice to protest Fujimori’s release, yelling: “A pardon is an insult.”
The National Human Rights Coordinator issued a statement maintaining that the Constitutional Court “violates the rule of law by violating the resolution of the IACHR and, in addition, attacks the memory of the victims of the Fujimori dictatorship.” The feminist organization Manuela Ramos also criticized the order and pointed out that Fujimori has never apologized for his crimes.
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