RIO DE JANEIRO — Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was convicted Tuesday of human-rights violations and sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in killings and kidnappings by security forces during his government’s battle against leftist guerrillas in the 1990s.
The verdict, delivered by a three-judge panel on a police base outside of Lima where Fujimori has been held throughout the trial, marked the first time that an elected head of state has been extradited back to his home country, tried and convicted for human- rights violations.
Fujimori, found guilty of murder, bodily harm and two cases of kidnapping, betrayed little emotion as the verdict was read.
Throughout the morning proceedings, he rarely looked up, scribbling in a notebook on the table in front of him.
The 25-year sentence was near the upper range of the maximum 30 years in prison that Fujimori faced.
Fujimori, who could be in prison until February 2032, asked that the case be nullified. His appeal will now move to the Supreme Court.
Maria McFarland, a lawyer and senior researcher with the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, said of the verdict: “I think that this was absolutely the right decision. It is well-grounded in all the evidence.
“The quality of justice being dictated is high, which is good for Peru and the world,” said McFarland, who was in Peru to observe the verdict.
Fujimori, 70, argued in defiant outbursts during his 16-month-long trial that he never ordered the killings perpetrated by a death squad of the Army Intelligence Service known as the Colina Group and that he was rather a wartime president fighting to protect his people.
“The Peru that I inherited was a disaster. It was a Peru that had to be rescued,” he said in his closing statements.
But Judge Cesar San Martin said it was clear Fujimori authorized the creation of the death squad, which killed dozens of people.
“This court declares that the four charges against him have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt,” San Martin said.
Fujimori’s trial focused on two episodes of killings: the 1991 murder of 15 people and the 1992 abduction and murder of nine students and a teacher from La Cantuta University.
