Peruvian Cabinet OKs Request to Extradite Fujimori
The Peruvian government said Friday that the Cabinet had approved a formal request to extradite former President Alberto Fujimori from Japan on murder charges, and was translating the 600-page document to send to Tokyo.
In a resolution published in the official gazette and signed by President Alejandro Toledo, the government acknowledged its biggest hurdle--that the two countries have no extradition treaty. But it appealed to international law, which recognizes human rights crimes.
Fujimori, who ruled the poor Andean nation with an iron fist from 1990 to 2000, denies all charges against him and says he would not get a fair trial in Peru.
He has Japanese as well as Peruvian citizenship, and Japan does not as a rule extradite its nationals.
Fujimori fled to Tokyo at the height of a corruption scandal in November 2000 and was fired. He is wanted in Peru on charges of murder--relating to two notorious massacres by a paramilitary an army death squad in the early 1990s--as well as on separate corruption charges.
In 2001, Peru’s attorney general charged Fujimori with responsibility for the two massacres carried out by the Grupo Colina death squad.
Ministry officials said the government had no translator on staff and expected that the translation could take two months.
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