Peru Asks Japan to Return Fujimori

Peruvian authorities formally asked Japan today to extradite former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who fled to the Asian nation 2 1/2 years ago amid the collapse of his scandal-ridden government, an official said.

Peruvian Ambassador Luis J. Macchiavello submitted the 700-page extradition request to the Foreign Ministry, said Peruvian Embassy spokesman Cesar Jordan.

The Lima government wants Fujimori returned to Peru to face numerous charges, including murder, embezzlement and treason.

But the extradition request applies only to the murder charge. It seeks to link Fujimori to killings committed by a paramilitary death squad known as the Colina group.

The group has been accused of the massacre of 15 people in Lima, the capital, in 1991 and the kidnapping and slaying of nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University the following year.

Fujimori, who fled to Japan in November 2000 amid a corruption scandal that toppled his decade-long government, has denied all charges against him.

An official at the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Peru division said that the Japanese government received the documents but that it was too early to say how Tokyo planned to respond.

Peru hopes that the extradition request will persuade Tokyo to turn over Fujimori. The son of Japanese immigrants, he reclaimed his Japanese citizenship soon after he arrived in the Asian nation.

Tokyo has rejected such requests, saying it cannot turn over nationals because Japan has no extradition treaty with Peru.