A Peruvian court sentenced former president Alberto Fujimori to
six years in prison for abuse of power and ordered him to pay a
fine of 400,000 new soles (around 132,000 US dollars) to the
state.
In this first ever sentence handed down to Fujimori, the court
also barred him from standing for any kind of political office for
two years.
Pedro Urbina, a spokesman for the Supreme Court of Justice, said
the sentence was for Fujimori's role in ordering a warrantless
search of the house belonging to the wife of his spy chief
Vladimiro Montesinos in November 2000.
Fujimori said the sentence was very harsh since he pleaded
guilty in this case and he would make a partial appeal to contest
the jail sentence and the fine.
Urbina began reading the sentence at 3:00 p.m. local time (2000
GMT), a process that lasted 165 minutes, in the special court set
up at the National Special Operations Directorate headquarters in a
small town some seven km from Peru's capital Lima.
Fujimori has been held at the directorate building since his
September extradition from neighboring Chile. He had flown there in
2005 from Japan, in the hope that he would be extradited to Peru
only on minor charges.
Fujimori was also accused of murder, human rights violations and
corruption and he pleaded not guilty to all charges. He may face up
to 30 years in prison if convicted of the crimes.
(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2007)
