Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori – who was convicted of human rights abuses and corruption – has died of cancer aged 86.
His death on Wednesday in the capital, Lima, was announced by his daughter Keiko Fujimori.
“After a long battle with cancer, our father… has just departed to meet the Lord,” she wrote in a social media post on X, also signed by her three siblings – Hiro, Sachie and Kenji.
“We ask those who loved him to accompany us with a prayer for the eternal rest of his soul.”
Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants, led the country from 1990 to 2000.
Fujimori after winning Peru’s presidential election in June 1990. Pic: AP
During his decade in power he stabilised the economy after rampant hyperinflation with the privatisation of dozens of state-run companies.
Also under his watch, the feared leader of the Maoist Shining Path, Abimael Guzman, was captured – a blow to a rebel movement that in the 1980s seemed close to toppling the Peruvian state.
Fujimori quickly established himself as a cunning politician whose hands-on style produced results.
But while he won the support of many, he also ruled with an iron fist, and many Peruvians saw Fujimori as an autocrat.
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After briefly shutting down Congress and elbowing himself into a controversial third term, he fled the country in disgrace in 2000 when leaked videotapes showed his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, bribing politicians.
He went to Japan from where he famously faxed in his resignation.
Five years later, when he landed in neighbouring Chile, he was arrested and extradited to Peru.
He was convicted of human rights violations, abuse of power and for ordering two massacres using death squads.
Fujimori was released from prison last December after serving nearly 15 years of a 25-year jail term after Peru’s constitutional court reinstated a humanitarian pardon which had been granted to him six years earlier.
Fujimori leaving a hospital in Lima in January 2018. Pic: Kyodo via AP
The ailing former leader was freed following years of health complaints. He had suffered from stomach ulcers,
hypertension and tongue cancer.
His supporters gathered outside his home last night.
“Today, I weep for a leader,” said Cesar Valverde.
“He should have been president again; we were working for Alberto Fujimori to be president again, but God has taken him.”
