SAO PAULO (Kyodo) — Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, a controversial figure who attracted both praise and censure as the first head of state of Japanese descent of the South American country, has died, his family said Sept. 11. He was 86.

Fujimori, who led Peru from 1990 to 2000, was initially hailed for bringing the country back from economic crisis and political violence. But he later fled the country in disgrace following allegations of corruption and ultimately served more than a decade in detention for human rights abuses.

The former president died on Sept. 11 in the Peruvian capital Lima, according to media reports. He had been repeatedly hospitalized in recent years due to heart problems.

“After a long battle with cancer, our father, Alberto Fujimori, has just departed to meet the Lord,” his eldest daughter, Keiko Fujimori, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He received a pardon in 2017 on medical grounds that was revoked and then granted again in 2022.

The son of immigrants, Fujimori trained as an agricultural engineer. He won a surprise victory in the 1990 presidential election against renowned novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, when he was viewed as the candidate who most understood the plight of the nation’s poor.

Although divisive, his shock economic policy curbed quadruple-digit inflation and put Peru on the path of economic recovery. He waged a battle against left-wing insurgencies on various fronts, including the high-profile arrests of Shining Path guerillas, and successfully suppressed them.

But his harsh security policies also entailed gross violations of human rights, and he used strong-arm tactics to consolidate his grip on power, such as by weakening democratic institutions through a “self-coup” in 1992.

Fujimori took credit for an armed operation in 1997 that rescued 71 hostages who had been held for 127 days by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima.