Alberto Fujimori and his long road to freedom with pardon

This Thursday, the Constitutional Court (TC) declared the habeas corpus presented by the defense of Alberto Fujimori founded and restored the effects of the humanitarian pardon that was awarded by former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in December 2017. But how did this path begin, here is a chronology of events that led to the freedom of the convicted person for the crimes of qualified homicide, enforced disappearance, aggravated kidnapping, corruption, among others.

CONDEMN FUJIMORI

- On December 10, 2007, the trial against Alberto Fujimori began for the massacre of Barrios Altos and La Cantuta.

- On April 7, 2009, the Special Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice sentenced former President Alberto Fujimori to 25 years in prison, as the mediated author of the crimes of qualified homicide, murder, serious injury and kidnapping. Fujimori would be released on February 10, 2032.

FUJIMORI'S PARDON AND PARDON

- On December 25, 2017, PPK surprised the public by announcing in a message to the nation that a day earlier it had decided to grant a “medical pardon” to imprisoned Alberto Fujimori.

- A day later, Fujimori asked for “forgiveness” for the “mistakes” made in his government. “I am aware that the results during my Government on the one hand were well received, but I acknowledge, on the other hand, that I have also let down other compatriots. I wholeheartedly apologize to them,” said a message recorded on video at the clinic where he was. then.

- On January 4, 2018, Fujimori left the clinic where he was hospitalized for heart problems, but as a free man.

RETURN TO PRISON

- On February 2, 2018, representatives of the victims of the massacres in La Cantuta and Barrios Altos filed a request to the Inter-American Court to revoke Fujimori's pardon as “arbitrary, irregular and illegal”.

- In addition, on February 19, 2018, Collegiate B of the National Criminal Chamber ruled that former President Alberto Fujimori should not be excluded from the trial for the massacre in Pativilca, Barranca, where six people died after being tortured in 1992.

- On June 15, 2018, the Inter-American Court issued a judgment and asked the Peruvian State to review the legality of the humanitarian pardon granted to Alberto Fujimori.

- On October 3, 2018, the Supreme Court's Preparatory Investigation Court, led by Judge Hugo Núñez Julca, declared the civil party's request not to apply the humanitarian pardon in favor of Fujimori to be founded. The judge also issued warrants for the location and arrest of the former president, in order for him to be re-admitted to a penitentiary institution.

THE QUEST FOR FREEDOM

- After Alberto Fujimori's re-imprisonment, his defense presented a series of resources to seek the former president's release from prison. However, on February 15, 2019, the judiciary declared inadmissible appeal for annulment against a resolution that invalidated pardon and ordered return to prison.

- On February 22, 2022, the Constitutional Court announced that it would review the habeas corpus that sought Fujimori's release.

- On December 17, the TC, with one less member after the death of Carlos Ramos, decides with a deciding vote the departure of Alberto Fujimori. Among the arguments taken into account in deciding his release, it was considered that “he is a person with health problems, that the humanitarian situation must be addressed and that in the 2017 pardon there were sufficient conditions for” him to be released from prison, as explained by the magistrate Eloy Espinoza, who voted against.

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