LIMA, Nov 10 (IPS) - The Peruvian courts are preparing to seek the extradition of former president Alberto Fujimori, currently in police custody in Chile, who faces 21 charges that would bring a total of 225 years in prison, based on the sentences sought by the country’s anti-corruption prosecutors.
Under Peruvian law, a prisoner found guilty in a number of cases only serves time for the most severe charges. In Fujimori’s case, that would be homicide and grievous bodily harm, which bring a minimum sentence of 15 years that can be expanded to life in prison at the discretion of the judge.
Supreme Court Justice José Luis Lecaros, who is handling nearly all of the cases against Fujimori, told IPS that the Peruvian justice system was in a position to mount a strong case for his extradition from Chile, based on the evidence gathered over the five years since the former president fled to Japan and resigned by fax.
Lecaros said that all that was needed to convict and sentence Fujimori in cases involving corruption and human rights abuses was his presence in Peru.
Fujimori, who governed Peru as an authoritarian ruler from 1990 to 2000, flew to Chile Sunday in a private jet from Japan and was arrested at his hotel in the early hours of Monday morning.
Peruvian prosecutors had only managed to file two translated extradition requests in Tokyo, which were turned down. Now, said Lecaros, judicial authorities can bring requests in Chile for all 21 of the charges.
The most important case against Fujimori involves his alleged authorisation of the Colina group, a death squad made up of active army intelligence agents.
Fujimori, through his security chief Vladimiro Montesinos who supervised the creation of the Colina group, is accused of approving of the plan to kidnap, torture and murder suspected members of the leftist insurgent groups Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.
Montesinos and members of the Colina group are now standing trial in an anticorruption court in Lima on charges of murdering 25 people. Three former agents who declared themselves guilty accused Fujimori and Montesinos of fully approving of their criminal activities in 1991 and 1992. In this case, Fujimori faces at least 15 years in prison.
Prosecutor Héctor Gutiérrez Ballón, who is preparing the extradition files, told IPS that there are three other serious human rights cases.
These include the 1992 murder of left-wing trade unionist Pedro Huilca Tecse and the forced disappearance and murder of an unspecified number of alleged "terrorists" in the basements of the SIE (the army intelligence body). Prosecutors are asking for 15 years in each of these two cases.
The third case, in which Fujimori could be sentenced to 10 years, relates to the kidnapping and torture of journalist Fabián Salazar in 2000, at the hands of retired police colonel Manuel Aivar, who sometimes carried out Montesinos’ dirty work.
Salazar was tortured and almost killed after the intelligence services discovered that he had uncovered evidence of government corruption.
With respect to putting together the extradition requests, "Since time is short, we are going to put emphasis on the cases involving human rights violations, which does not mean that the rest of the cases are not important too. The first extradition files should be in Chile within three weeks," said Gutiérrez Ballón.
Lecaros confirmed that the courts had received the requests from the ad hoc Fujimori-Montesinos prosecutor’s office to file the extradition application.
"It is my responsibility to organise three files against Fujimori to send to Chile: one accusing him of abandoning the post of president to take refuge in Japan and resign from there by fax; another for having broken into Montesinos’ house after (the security chief) fled the country, when Fujimori stole video and cassette recordings and documen
