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Peruvian president Alan Garcia Thursday proposed a national referendum [press release, in Spanish] on introducing capital punishment for convicted terrorists after a legislative proposal to that effect was defeated 49-26 in the Peruvian Congress [official website] on Wednesday. Garcia described the defeat as one contrary to the will of the Peruvian people, and "[it was his] duty to fulfill what [he has] promised... in [his election] campaign." Political observers believe that Congress is unlikely to support the referendum proposal, which itself requires the approval of Congress. Congressional opposition to the proposal cite the American Convention on Human Rights [text], which...

LIMA, Peru — A former president of Peru died on Wednesday after shooting himself in the head when the authorities tried to arrest him in connection with one of the biggest corruption scandals in Latin American history. A personal secretary for the former president, Alan García, 69, confirmed his death. The secretary, Ricardo Pineda, also told a Peruvian radio station that as the authorities arrived at the former president’s home with an arrest warrant, he locked himself into his bedroom, shot himself and was rushed to a hospital. The charges relate to Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction giant, which last year...

A recent surge in arrests and cocaine seizures in Peru points to an increased presence of Mexican drug cartels, counter-narcotics officials say. The cartels have also contributed to more drug-related violence in Peruvian cities, ports and in remote valleys in this Andean country where coca, cocaine's base material, is grown, the officials say. Peruvian claims of Mexican cartels expanding echo those by officials in other Latin American countries, from Honduras to Argentina, where Mexican gangs have supplanted once-powerful Colombian cartels as kings of the illicit-drug underworld. .... That Mexican drug lords are sending emissaries here is no surprise to Hidalgo...

Imprisoned former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has been pardoned by incumbent leader Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Mr. Kuczynski's office said in a statement that Fukimori, 79, was being released on health grounds. Fujimori-who was in power from 1990 to 2000-was recently taken from prison to hospital because of low blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythm. He has been serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption..... He was admired by some Peruvians for combating Maoist rebels, whereas his critics consider him a corrupt dictator. Fujimori has been in and out of hospital for a variety of health problems in...

Peru’s Keiko Fujimori conceded defeat in yesterday’s presidential election to Ollanta Humala, who won a narrow victory as voters overlooked his past support for Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and rallied behind his pledges to stamp out corruption and extend a mining boom to the nation’s poor. Fujimori, speaking to reporters in Lima, said she will lead a responsible opposition and “build bridges” with Humula’s government. She said she will offer him her personal congratulations in a meeting later today. “I recognize his triumph,” said the 36-year-old congresswoman. “It’s important that the country continues its economic course and that it has clear...

Peruvian opposition candidate Ollanta Humala is headed to victory over Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori in the Andean nation’s presidential runoff, according to a quick count of ballots and three exit polls. Humala won 51.5 percent compared with 48.5 percent for Fujimori, according to a quick count of 91 percent of ballots at selected polling stations nationwide by Lima-based researcher Ipsos-Apoyo.

LIMA, May 26 (Reuters) - Right-wing lawmaker Keiko Fujimori may be pulling away from leftist Ollanta Humala 10 days before Peru's June 5 presidential run-off and a gaffe by a top aide has not hurt her, a poll showed on Thursday. Fujimori, who is backed by the business community and is the daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori, had the support of 52.9 percent of respondents, the pollster Datum said. Humala, a former military officer, had 47.1 percent support when null and spoiled mock ballots were excluded in a simulated vote organized by pollsters, according to the nationwide survey...

Earlier this month, Peru's Supreme Court rejected the appeal of former President Alberto Fujimori of his 25-year sentence for murder and abduction, reaffirming the principle that no one is above the law. This is but the latest of several triumphs for human rights and accountability in the Andean nation. The United States would do well to study the Peruvian example. In 1992, the most brutal communist guerrilla group in Latin American history brought dozens of car bombs and political assassinations to Lima. A nation of more than 22 million, with a sophisticated, cosmopolitan capital, seemed unable to counter the threat...

Fujimori by Theodore Dalrymple (August 2009) Does the end justify the means? This question, difficult to answer in the abstract with a categorical negative or affirmative, occurred to me when I read that Alberto Fujimori, former president of Peru, had been sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment for corruption, to run concurrently with the twenty-five years he is already serving for abuse of human rights. As it happens, I was in Peru just before, during and after the election that first brought Fujimori to power. His opponent was the world-famous novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, who I, like many...

Fujimori by Theodore Dalrymple (August 2009) Does the end justify the means? This question, difficult to answer in the abstract with a categorical negative or affirmative, occurred to me when I read that Alberto Fujimori, former president of Peru, had been sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment for corruption, to run concurrently with the twenty-five years he is already serving for abuse of human rights. As it happens, I was in Peru just before, during and after the election that first brought Fujimori to power. His opponent was the world-famous novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, whom I, like many...

The conviction Tuesday of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori on human rights charges – including authorizing murder and kidnapping – has been hailed by some as a milestone for justice in Latin America. Mr. Fujimori, who ruled Peru throughout the 1990s, is the first democratically elected leader in the region found guilty, in his own country, of human rights abuses. But the conviction is also an important moment for national healing in Peru, says Efrain Gonzales, the vice rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in Lima. While about one third of the country still supports the former leader,...

The former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori was today convicted of kidnapping and murder and sentenced to 25 years in what was described as a landmark ruling for human rights cases in Latin America. A three-judge panel found the 70-year-old guilty of authorising a military death squad during the state's "dirty war" against Maoist rebels in the 1990s. The 15-month trial, held at a special forces police base just outside the capital, Lima, was the first time a democratically elected Latin American leader had been tried on home soil for human rights abuses. "This court declares that the four charges against...

The trial of former President Alberto Fujimori of Peru, quietly nearing a conclusion in a Lima courtroom, has been a model process that shows how countries can deal with despotic leaders from a troubled past. In the course of a trial that began in December 2007, prosecutors have built a methodical case that the former president authorized two death-squad killings in the early 1990s as part of an anti-insurgency strategy that produced gross human-rights violations. Waging a dirty war Mr. Fujimori argues that there is no direct evidence tying him to the two incidents. He also denies knowing the existence...

Several of the the candidates running in Sunday’s Upper House election which received international coverage failed to gain seats, Japanese news outlets reported on Monday. Peru’s former President Alberto Fujimori, currently under house arrest in Santiago, Chile, facing charges for corruption and human rights violations, failed to get a seat through his candidacy for the People’s New Party (PNP), but did win 51,411 votes. Yuko Tojo, the granddaughter of the executed wartime general Tojo who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor, ran as an indepent in the hotly contested Tokyo constituency, but did not win a seat. Kanako Otsuji, the...

Fujimori to run for office in Japan as trial in Peru looms by Harumi Ozawa Thu Jun 28, 4:31 AM ET Peru's ex-president Alberto Fujimori has announced he will run for office in Japan in another bizarre twist to the career of the former strongman who is under house arrest in Chile. Fujimori, who holds both Japanese and Peruvian citizenship, confirmed late Wednesday he would stand in the July 29 elections for the upper house as a candidate of a tiny political party. The move is seen by critics as an attempt to thwart extradition efforts by Peru to bring...

SANTIAGO, Chile - Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, freed on bail after more than six months in a Chilean jail, said Saturday that his political movement is still strong in Peru and promised a political comeback. In an interview with The Associated Press two days after being freed on bail by Chile's Supreme Court, the 67-year-old former ruler refused to say which candidate he supports in Peru's June 4 runoff election pitting former President Alan Garcia, a moderate leftist, against nationalist former army officer Ollanta Humala. He said, however, that "Fujimorismo", as he calls his movement, will soon take a...

SANTIAGO, Chile - Peru formally asked Chile on Tuesday to extradite former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori on human rights and corruption charges. Peru's ambassador to Chile and a Peruvian special prosecutor delivered to Chile 12 sealed boxes of documents detailing allegations that include 25 death-squad killings in the 1990s, illegal phone tapping, diversion of state funds to the intelligence service, bribery of politicians, and the transfer of $15 million to Fujimori's spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos. The ambassador, Jose Antonio Meir, said the documents contain "strong and sufficient proof of the charges" against Fujimori. Fujimori has been under arrest in Chile...

Chile tells supporters of Alberto Fujimori, Peru's former president who is being detained in Chile, that promoting his candidacy is prohibited. SANTIAGO, Chile - (AP) -- As supporters and foes of jailed former Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori demonstrated outside his detention place, the government Sunday warned that he or his backers cannot promote his campaign to regain Peru's presidency while in Chile. ''It is not permitted to do political campaigning that may affect internal security or relations with neighboring countries, and the government is going to be very strict on this,'' presidential spokesman Osvaldo Puccio said. Fujimori -- who had...

ALARM - former Peruvian president Fujimori stopped in Chile SANTIAGO - former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, shown to have financed several assassinations and to have devoted itself to offences of corruption, was stopped Monday morning in Santiago of Chile where it had arrived a few hours earlier, announced in Lima the Peruvian minister Foreign Affairs, Oscar Maúrtua.

Fujimori voices intention to run for president Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori on Thursday formally announced his intention to run in the Peruvian presidential election next April. His announcement was made at a press conference in Tokyo, where he has been staying in exile for five years.