Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori dies at 86

Alberto Fujimori, whose presidency initially aroused admiration for his economic management and his heavy hand against left-wing terrorist groups, only to see his reputation destroyed by condemnations of human rights abuses for atrocities committed by his government, died this Sept. 11 at age 86 in Lima.

His death from cancer was confirmed by his daughter Keiko Fujimori on her social network account X.

Fujimori, who ruled with an increasingly authoritarian hand between 1990 and 2000, was pardoned in December 2017 of his convictions for corruption and responsibility for the murder of 25 people. His daughter Keiko said in July that she planned to run for president for the fourth time in 2026.

The former university president and mathematics professor was a political novice when he won the Peruvian elections in 1990 against writer Mario Vargas Llosa.

Después de una larga batalla contra el cáncer, nuestro padre, Alberto Fujimori acaba de partir al encuentro del Señor. Pedimos a quienes lo apreciaron nos acompañen con una oración por el eterno descanso de su alma.
Gracias por tanto papá!
Keiko, Hiro, Sachie y Kenji Fujimori.

— Keiko Fujimori (@KeikoFujimori) September 11, 2024

Fujimori assumed power in a country devastated by inflation and guerrilla violence. He purified the economy with bold measures and defeated fanatical rebels of the Maoist Shining Path communist terror movement. However, his presidency collapsed in equally dramatic fashion.

After briefly shutting down Congress, he fled the country in 2000 amid a corruption scandal when video tapes were leaked showing his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, bribing lawmakers.

He spent several years in Japan, his parents' homeland - he resigned by fax - before sneaking through Chile where he was arrested and extradited to Peru. He hoped to run for the presidency of Peru in 2006 but ended up in court accused of abuse of power.

He became the first former president in the world to be tried in his own country for human rights violations. Although he was found not guilty of ordering the 25 murders committed by death squads, he was held responsible because the crimes were committed in the name of his government.

In 2009 he was sentenced by a Peruvian court to 25 years in prison.

In December 2017, he received a medical pardon from President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Some members of the Peruvian congress spoke out against the pardon, but others supported it.

Fujimori's son Kenji, then a congressman, had long campaigned for his father's release, as had his daughter Keiko, a former congressman who had been her father's first lady.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the pardon, stating that it had been conceived “for political reasons” and that it “undermines the work of the Peruvian judiciary and the international community to deliver justice (…) It is a “a slap in the face to the victims and witnesses whose tireless commitment brought him to justice.”

Peru's Supreme Court overturned the pardon in October 2018, by which time Kuczynski had resigned amid corruption allegations that included negotiating a political deal with Kenji Fujimori.

That same month, Keiko Fujimori was arrested on money laundering charges stemming from her several failed presidential bids.

In March 2022, Peru's highest court restored the humanitarian pardon that Kuczynski had granted to Fujimori. His release was delayed until December 2023 due to pressure from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

He is survived by his four children. The eldest, Keiko Fujimori, who became first lady in 1996 when her father divorced her mother Susana Higuchi, who accused him of having tortured her. Hiro Fujimori, Sachi Fujimori and the youngest son, Kenji Fujimori, who was elected congressman.