Peru's Fujimori gets six-year sentence for corruption



LIMA - Peru's former president Alberto Fujimori, already sentenced to 25 years behind bars for human right violations, was sentenced Wednesday to six years in jail for corruption.
The ex-president said he would appeal the latest sentence the minute it was read out. Prosecutor Jose Pelaez said the punishment was too weak for the crime, and that he, too, would appeal.



Peru's Fujimori gets six-year sentence for corruption
Fujimori, 71, admitted to bribing opposition lawmakers, illegal purchase of a media outlet and wiretapping politicians, journalists and businesspeople at the start of his fourth and final trial earlier this week.
In Peru, however, multiple prison sentences are not combined. Rather the individual convicted serves the longest term, in Fujimori's case the 25-year sentence he received last April.
So he faces the potential of spending the rest of his life behind bars.
The court separately Wednesday ordered the former president -- who was in office from 1990-2000 -- to pay a fine worth eight million US dollars to the state and one million to the 28 political leaders and journalists that his regime targeted.
It was the last of four trials that had been set against Fujimori, capping a spectacular political fall from grace with a degree of accountability not always achieved in Peru, which has a long history of corruption woes.
Prior to Wednesday's sentence, Fujimori already had three convictions and sentences handed down.
In two prior corruption cases, the ex-president was sentenced to six and seven years respectively. But technically he has not served them and will serve the 25-year term.
Fujimori's political downfall came in 2000. His security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, was exposed in a video broadcast on television apparently buying off an opposition lawmaker. The ensuing scandal forced Fujimori to announce new elections in which he would not take part.
In November that year, Fujimori fled to Japan from Brunei and sent a fax from Tokyo announcing his resignation. Congress refused to accept it and instead voted to sack him and ban him from public office for 10 years.
In 2005, Fujimori, who was trying to keep involved in Peruvian politics while in Japanese exile, flew to Chile on a private jet. On arrival, he was arrested and Peru demanded his extradition. Chile ended up granting it in September 2007.
Fujimori's daughter Keiko enjoys her own political career in Peru, and remains deeply loyal to him. She has said she is considering running for president in 2011 and that, if she wins, she would pardon her father.
Earlier this week Fujimori pled guilty to bribing lawmakers and spying on former rivals for the presidency and others while in power, though he long insisted all charges against him were politically motivated fabrications of his enemies.
Many analysts believe that Fujimori, in admitting corruption, sought to avoid an onslaught of damaging testimony that could hurt Keiko's chances in the 2011 presidential election.
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Wednesday, September 30th 2009
AFP
           


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