Peru - December 2023

Former President Alberto Fujimori has been granted a humanitarian pardon by Peru’s Constitutional Court. The 85-year-old former president’s health has been mentioned as the basis for this pardon. He had been sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for ordering extrajudicial killings carried out by an army group, including the 1991 Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings. A previous pardon had been overturned, given its implications for Peru’s international human rights obligations. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), considering a request for provisional measures from victims’ families, called on the Peruvian government not to release Fujimori, reasoning that the nature of his crimes is incompatible with a humanitarian pardon. Once released, the IACtHR stated that Peru had flouted its rulings, which are binding on the Peruvian state. Fujimori’s conviction came after years of eluding justice, and victims’ families and activists have expressed their rejection of the decision.

Sources: El Comercio Peru, The Guardian, Inter-American Court of Human Rights