Peru - December 2023

Peru’s Constitutional Court upheld the controversial 2017 pardon granted to former President Alberto Fujimori by former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. 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 being the "indirect perpetrator" of the massacre of 15 people in Barrios Altos, the forced disappearance and execution of 10 students from La Cantuta University, and the abductions of Gustavo Gorriti and Samuel Dyer. 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.

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