The Trial of Alberto Fujimori

In a specially constructed courtroom located in a prison facility on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, the man who held control of this Andean country with an iron fist for a decade is facing justice at long last.

Alberto Fujimori assumed the presidency in 1990 in the wake of current president Alan Garcia’s disastrous first term in office. He was a dark-horse candidate but he bested novelist Mario Vargas Llosa in a runoff with 57 percent of the vote.

At the time Peru was in desperate straights. Hyperinflation and an ongoing leftist insurgency had brought the government to its knees and the country was teetering on collapse. Over the next several years, Fujimori oversaw a dramatic turnaround that was enabled by his authoritarian hold on the government.

Ten years later Fujimori’s government collapsed amid charges of abuse of power and corruption. The disgraced president faxed in his resignation and fled to Japan, his ancestral homeland, which then refused to allow his extradition.

Yet, in 2005, Fujimori flew to Santiago, Chile ostensibly to affect the 2006 presidential election. He was arrested by Chilean authorities and returned to Peru last year after a convoluted extradition process.

Today, Fujimori faces a battery of charges that encompass allegations of corruption and human rights abuses during his term in office. The trials began on Dec. 10, 2007, ironically enough, Human Rights Day. As many expected, Fujimori started the proceedings with a bang, angrily shouting "I declare myself innocent," and "I never ordered the death of anybody."

He was quickly found guilty for an abuse of authority charge and sentenced to six years in prison - a conviction upheld this week. While the conviction is on a relatively minor incident - for illegally ordering the search and seizure of the home of his former security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos (who is also on trial for various abuses) – it gives the government the ability to hold the ex-president for trial on the other more serious charges.

One of the most serious charges against the president is what has come to be known as "La Cantuta University massacre." Nine students and a professor from a local teachers' college suspected of being rebel collaborators were kidnapped and killed in 1992 by members of a military death squad acting under executive orders.

In a separate trial last week, a general and three members of the nefarious La Colina unit were convicted for the killings, a verdict that could have implications for the ex-president's trial.

"If the men who carried out the acts are found guilty, undoubtedly, the man at the top of the command chain, the man behind it all, Fujimori, also will be condemned for the same acts," said Jose Pelaez, the prosecutor in Fujimori's trial.

Perhaps the best resource on the legal proceedings it the blog, Fujimori on Trial, being produced by the Praxis Institute for Social Justice that is providing daily updates and analysis.