Global Policy Forum

By Simon Romero

Chile's Supreme Court on Friday approved the extradition of Peru's former president, Alberto K. Fujimori, on charges of human rights abuses and corruption during his time in power in the 1990s. The ruling, which cannot be appealed, may have broader influence, legal experts said. In Latin America and elsewhere, former heads of state have normally been able to avoid extradition, even between countries with treaties, or they have been sent for trial before special tribunals, usually after political negotiations between governments. The very fact that Chile's judiciary seriously reviewed the case at the request of Peruvian prosecutors was exceptional, and the judges then treated Mr. Fujimori, Peru's president from 1990 to 2000, like any citizen, handling his case in its own courts.

After the ruling, Mr. Fujimori, 69, continued under house arrest in a mansion in this capital city, where he has been since June while awaiting a ruling on the extradition request. He arrived here in 2005, en route from exile in Japan back to Peru, where he had wanted to return to power. Mr. Fujimori faced a return home on Friday under circumstances very different from what he had hoped. The prospect of his trial and imprisonment in Peru seems certain not only to undo those ambitions, but also to introduce a polarizing and potentially destabilizing figure back into Peru's politics. "For me this is an opportunity to return," Mr. Fujimori said in comments Friday on Peruvian radio, "because my objective is to reunite with the people." "I'm physically and emotionally prepared to deal with this situation," he said. Mr. Fujimori has retained a loyal following in Peru despite the revelations of abuse and generalized corruption in institutions controlled by him and his former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos. Even today the government of President Alan Garcí­a relies on votes from pro-Fujimori lawmakers to approve legislation, and declarations from prison by Mr. Fujimori could alter Peru's political landscape. "This is not the best scenario for Alan Garcí­a, since Fujimori will almost certainly make waves," said José Ugaz, a Peruvian lawyer who was a special state attorney investigating Mr. Fujimori and Mr. Montesinos. "But it is a clear victory against corruption and impunity."

Peru's comptroller general has estimated that Mr. Fujimori received $43.2 million to $59.4 million from the national intelligence service from 1992 to 2000, and he is accused of arranging the transfer of $15 million in state funds to Mr. Montesinos shortly before the collapse of his government. In addition, Mr. Fujimori is accused of human rights abuses related to the activities of the Colina Group, a secretive squad of military intelligence officers believed to have carried out more than two dozen extrajudicial killings in the early 1990s. The squad carried out massacres in which 25 people died in 1991 and 1992. "This is not vengeance, but justice," said Gisela Ortiz, 35, the sister of one of nine students killed by the group at La Cantuta University in 1992. The squad's operatives shot and killed the students and a professor, later hiding their bodies. "I feel tranquillity," Ms. Ortiz said as she and other relatives of victims gathered Friday at a park in Lima. Mr. Fujimori has denied the charges, despite videotaped evidence in which the death squad's operational head stated that Mr. Fujimori specifically approved policy creating the group. "This will strengthen us because the truth will become known," Santiago Fujimori, Mr. Fujimori's brother and a Peru congressman, said in comments to the Andina news agency.

After faxing his resignation from Tokyo in 2000, Mr. Fujimori received citizenship from Japan, from which his parents had emigrated to Peru. In 2005 Mr. Fujimori unexpectedly ended his self-imposed exile and traveled to Chile, apparently intending to return to Peru and try for a political comeback. But he was arrested soon after he arrived, and Peru quickly sought extradition. Chile's Supreme Court had been reviewing the case since July, when one of its members ruled against extradition. Under Chilean law, the case was appealed to the full court. The court said last week that it had reached a decision, but delayed its ruling until after a national holiday that ended Wednesday. "It was easier than expected to get to this point," said Justice Alberto Chaigneau, who announced the ruling, pointing to the court's unanimous decision on the human rights charges.

The ruling could ease political tension between Chile and Peru, at odds for decades over maritime boundaries. President Michelle Bachelet phoned Mr. Garcí­a to tell him of the ruling. Chile's decision to take up the case was significant, given its courts' previous hesitance to grant the extradition of a Nazi war criminal and a perception that the judiciary lacked independence during and after the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who presided over human rights abuses. "This is a breaking point in international law," said Alfredo Etcheberry, the Chilean lawyer who represented Peru's government in the extradition case. "It is the first time Chile grants delivery of a former head of state by way of extradition to the country where he is wanted."

Before now, Chile and other countries have been reluctant to do that. Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, the former dictator of Paraguay, for example, lived in exile in Brazil from 1989 until his death last year. Despite a treaty between the countries, and the fact that he was wanted on murder charges, no serious effort was made to extradite him. In other recent cases, former heads of state have been turned over to international tribunals. Serbia delivered Slobodan Milosevic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and Nigeria handed over Charles Taylor, the former dictator of Liberia, to face trial by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. But the Chilean decision offers a contrast, because it was a domestic court and not the executive branch in negotiation with other governments that ruled to extradite a former head of state. José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, said the ruling fit a trend begun when the British House of Lords ruled that General Pinochet could be extradited to Spain to face charges of torture. "This is a significant historical decision for both Chile and Peru," Mr. Vivanco said. "It involves the workings of domestic institutions, not political negotiations between governments." But in the Pinochet case, the British courts ultimately turned down Spain's extradition request and let the general return to Chile on grounds that a series of strokes had left him unfit for trial. "A taboo has been broken, with Fujimori treated like any other person accused of embezzlement or murder who flees to Chile," said M. Cherif Bassiouni, an expert on extradition at the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago. "The symbolic consequences of this decision will embolden other countries to say that nobody is above the law."

Andrea Zarate contributed reporting from Lima.