Alberto Fujimori, 86, was the former president of Peru. His daughter posted a message on X announcing his passing on Wednesday.
“After fighting cancer for a long time, our father, Alberto Fujimori, just went to be with the Lord. We ask those who were close to him to join us in praying for his everlasting rest. I’m really grateful, Dad. In addition to her own name, Keiko Fujimori penned the names of her three siblings: Hiro, Sachie, and Kenji.
Nine months after he was granted his freedom again, Fujimori passed away in Lima, the capital of Peru. After going into prison in 2007, the former agronomist, who led Peru from 1990 to 2000, experienced several health issues.
He was found guilty in 2009 of kidnapping and murder and given a 25-year prison sentence for corruption and violating human rights. This included his indirect involvement in the massacres that claimed 25 lives in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta.
During his tenure, numerous violations of human rights occurred.
“I was forced to rule from hell.” Not from the palace, but from a hell I experienced, not the one making the accusations against me. During his trial, Fujimori stated, “I only hope that those who sentence me try for a moment to imagine that hell and not try to civilize it from a distance.”
President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski awarded the son of Japanese immigrants a humanitarian pardon in 2017, but the Supreme Court of Peru revoked it a year later, and he was sent to prison in 2019. The Constitutional Court freed him at the end of 2023, but the ruling did not follow an Inter-American Court of Human Rights mandate.
In 1990, the untried politician made his presidential debut by defeating renowned author Mario Vargas Llosa in the election’s second round.
During his administration, he was acknowledged for bringing the economy back from the brink of widespread hyperinflation and for putting an end to two insurgencies, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the Shining Path.
Because he lacked a majority in the legislature and had special powers not ordinarily granted, he dissolved Congress on April 5, 1992.
After leading a second term in 1995 that was tainted by allegations of corruption and authoritarianism, he was elected to a third term in 2000.
He resigned as president in November 2000 while he was in Japan, preventing his extradition to Peru for a period of six years. The former president traveled to Chile in 2005 in an attempt to return to his home country; after two years, Chile turned him over to the Peruvian legal system. He never wavered in his innocence.
His daughter Keiko, who led a right-wing populist political organization and lost the previous three elections, declared in July that her father would run as the principal candidate for Fujimorism in the general elections of 2026.
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