The former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), pardoned in December for health reasons after being sentenced to 25 years in prison, died on Tuesday night in Lima at the age of 86, his family announced.
“After a long battle with cancer, our father, Alberto Fujimori, has just gone to meet the Lord. We ask those who love him to join us in prayer for the eternal rest of his soul. Thank you for everything, father,” announced his children Keiko, Hiro, Sachie, and Kenji Fujimori on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
The former leader, son of Japanese immigrants in Peru, was released in December after spending 16 years in a prison east of Lima.
He was serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity, including two massacres of civilians committed by an Army death squad during the fight against the Maoist guerrillas of Sendero Luminoso in the early 1990s.
His legacy divides Peru, with some viewing him as the leader who managed to destroy the terrorist threat of Sendero Luminoso, and others remembering Fujimori as an authoritarian and corrupt president who did not shy away from any means to achieve his goals.
Elected in 1990, two years later, Fujimori decided to close Congress with the support of the Army, criticizing lawmakers for blocking all legislative initiatives he deemed essential to defeat the Maoist guerrillas. His government was marked by abuses of power and massacres against indigenous populations, but it was allegations of corruption that precipitated his downfall.
He even attempted to escape abroad to flee the accusations but ended up being arrested and extradited. In 2009, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
He was released in December by order of the Constitutional Court “for humanitarian reasons,” despite the opposition from the Inter-American Court. In May, Fujimori announced he had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor on his tongue.
Fujimori’s health rapidly deteriorated during the last week, despite having completed mouth radiotherapy in August, family sources said.
A Catholic priest arrived on Wednesday afternoon at the house in the San Borja neighborhood of Lima, where he lived with his eldest daughter, Keiko Fujimori.
Fujimori was last seen in public on September 5, leaving a clinic in the Miraflores district, where he underwent medical exams, as he himself indicated.
On July 14, Keiko Fujimori, leader of the country’s main right-wing party, announced that her father would run for the presidential elections in 2026.
“We’ll see,” Alberto Fujimori had said recently.