Peru’s Fujimori Sentenced to Six Years for Corruption

SENTENCED — Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to six years for corruption. Kyodo News Photo

RIO DE JANEIRO — Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was sentenced Sept. 30 to six years in prison for corruption.

At the outset of a trial that started earlier this week, Fujimori, 71, admitted that he had illegally wiretapped opposition politicians, businessmen and journalists as well as bribing the politicians during his 1990-2000 rule.

Fujimori reportedly said he would appeal the ruling.

The sentence was the fourth and final given to Fujimori since returning from exile in 2007.

In April, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years for human rights crimes related to two massacres that occurred during his rule in the early 1990s.

This marked the first time a former Peruvian president was found guilty of human rights violations committed while in office.

In December 2007, after his extradition from Chile, Fujimori was sentenced to six years for illegally ordering a raid on Trinidad Becerra, the wife of Montesinos.

In July this year, he was sentenced to seven and a half years for tapping into the state coffers to bribe his right-hand man.

Born in Peru to Japanese immigrants, Fujimori won the 1990 presidential election.

His heyday came when he tamed economic confusion and defeated the Shinning Path guerrillas.

He was also lauded for his strong leadership in freeing dozens of hostages from the Tupac Amaru insurgency during a siege of the Japanese ambassador’s official residence in Lima in 1996-1997.

Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 amid a corruption scandal that toppled his government.

In November 2005, he traveled to Chile in the hope of making a comeback in Peruvian politics but was arrested. He was handed over to Peru in 2007.