The breaking news is that former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori has been sentenced to 25 years in prison by a special criminal commission of the Peruvian Supreme Court. Fujimori was found guilty of four charges relating to massacres in La Cantuta and Barrios Altos in 1991 and 1992, as well as the kidnapping and torture of journalist Gustavo Gorritti and businessman Samuel Dyer.
The verdict came after 160 sessions spread over 15 months, following Fujimori's extradition from Chile in September 2007.
This is a momentous event, the first occasion in which a former head of state has been successfully tried in his own country for human rights abuses, by a court internationally recognised as independent and respectful of due process. It is a powerful strike against the concept that anybody can be above the law.
In an interview in La Republica, investigative journalist Ángel Páez, a longstanding critic of Fujimori, says that:
...we can sure, after this case, , with absolute clarity, that nothing justifies the systematic and permanent violation of human rights as part of a government policy.
3 comments:
Well... if one day something similar happens in Colombia, for sure we are gonna get the Guniness Record as the country with more ex-presidents in prison.
Really? Which Colombian presidents are / have been in prison?
At the moment nobody. Unfortunately in Colombia the law reachs the oligarchy with great difficulty. Generally, there are ways to protect them.
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