Fujimori Extradition Case

This is an update to my last post. I’d appreciate if you read that one first.

I have new information about the Fujimori case, and I wanted to share it with you.

First, there are 22 extradition charges against him. These are the same charges presented by the Peruvian government to Japan and, because of the lack of time, I suppose they don’t consider any additional proof or witness testimony.

According to the international extradition regulations, and the extradition treaty signed among Peru and Chile, if this country finds that there is enough evidence to judge Fujimori according to the Chilean laws (with imprisoning time of over one year), he would be extradited to Peru. BUT he could only be judged in Peru for those charges accepted by Chile.

Let me explain this point with yesterday’s first ruling. Chilean legislation doesn’t consider that “abandonment of office” deserves more than one year of jail (only a fine), and therefore that charge was not accepted. If any of the other charges were accepted, Fujimori would be sent to Peru BUT he could not be charged of “abandonment of office”.

The most important charge of those 21 remaining is homicide. It could mean over 10 years of jail for him. But again, it must be proved that under the Chilean legislation he is guilty. And if we consider the Pinochet case (former Chilean dictator), the Peruvian position doesn’t seem solid enough. Chilean Court ruled that Pinochet is guilty of only one of all the homicide charges presented against him and, in that single case, that was the verdict because the government presented a document signed by Pinochet demonstrating that he knew about the case. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there’s no similar proof that Fujimori ordered the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta homicides. This will mean that if the Court doesn’t find solid proof of Fujimori’s implication on those homicides, he could not be judged by those in Peru…

As I mentioned before, some of the other charges are well documented, but again, those charges wouldn’t send him to jail for more than 3-4 years (and even then, he could ask the sentence to be suspended because he’s a first-timer).

Now, can you explain me why he didn’t go back to Peru if he knew that there was no solid evidence against him?

The answer is simple: one, because he doesn’t trust the Peruvian Courts (he considers that they would face much political pressure to rule him guilty of all the charges), two, because this way he’s making a shield against the future. Again, if he’s extradited for 5 or 6 of all charges, he could never be charged with any of the other 16 or 17 again.

Isn’t that clever?

Unfortunately for him, he was probably not expecting to be imprisoned until the extradition ruling. It may have been one of the scenarios analyzed, but probably the less likely to him...


Once again, I’m not discussing here the guilt or innocence of Fujimori, but only the extradition case and the implications of his arrive in Chile. I’d appreciate any comment on these last two points.

Thanks for the visit!