Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
š
NewsTranscript
00:00He was the most polarising leader in Peru's modern history.
00:06The son of Japanese immigrants, Alberto Fujimori was the chancellor of a farming university
00:11when he was elected to be Peru's leader in 1990, taking charge of a country on the brink
00:16of economic collapse and gripped by political violence.
00:21To his supporters, he was the president who crushed the violent Maoist Shining Path movement
00:26and revived the country's economy following widespread hyperinflation.
00:30But many others view him as ruling as a dictator during his ten years in office, which was
00:35marked by human rights abuses.
00:37In 1992, he shut down the country's congress with military backing and redrafted the constitution.
00:44Three years later he restored congress and comfortably won a second term.
00:49But an increasing number of Peruvians started to raise concerns, accusing him of imposing
00:53unfair constraints on the media and judiciary.
00:57Other accusations piled up, including that he had authorised death squads in his fight
01:02against Shining Path militants and forced the sterilisation of tens of thousands of
01:06people.
01:09In 2000, after a bribery scandal involving his intelligence chief, Fujimori fled to Japan
01:15before being detained in Chile five years later.
01:18Extradited to Peru, he was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in jail for ordering the operation
01:24of a death squad responsible for killing civilians.
01:28A sentence that he did not serve in full.
01:31At the end of 2017, the country's then president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, granted him a pardon
01:37on health grounds.
01:39That pardon was later overturned, but then reinstated in 2023.
01:44His death comes after a long battle with cancer, according to his daughter, who also
01:49announced weeks earlier that he would be running for president in 2026.