April 7, 2009 3:09 PM
- Text
Ex-Peru President Guilty Of Murder
(AP)
A special tribunal has sentenced former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori to 25 years in prison for what it called "crimes against humanity" — death squad activities during his autocratic 10-year rule.
The 70-year-old former leader was convicted of 25 murders committed by a military hit squad in the early 1990s and the kidnappings of a businessman and a journalist.
The three-judge court said Tuesday there was no question Fujimori authorized the hit squad's creation and a cover-up of its 50 murders as he crushed the fanatical Shining Path insurgency.
"All the cases have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt," presiding Judge Cesar San Martin told a hushed courtroom.
Fujimori apparently anticipated a guilty verdict. He sat alone taking notes as the verdict was read after a 15-month televised trial.
Fujimori is the first democratically-elected former president to be tried for rights violations in his own country.
He said he would appeal.
His congresswoman daughter, Keiko, says the verdict will only strengthen her campaign for president. She is among front-runners in the 2011 race.
In its first bloody raid, the military death squad Fujimori was convicted of authorizing killed 15 people - including an 8-year-old - with silencer-equipped machine guns during a raid on a barbecue in July 1991 in the Barrios Altos district.
Seven months later, in July 1992, the so-called Colina group "disappeared" nine students and a leftist professor at La Cantuta university.
Fujimori was also convicted of two 1992 kidnappings: the 10-day abduction of businessman Samuel Dyer and the 24-hour abduction of Gustavo Gorriti, a leading journalist who had criticized the president's shuttering of the opposition-led Congress and courts.
Outside the Lima police base where the trial was being held, pro- and anti-Fujimori activists fought each other on the street with sticks, fists and rocks before the melee was broken up by riot police.
Some 30 relatives of victims clashed with about 500 Fujimori supporters. No injuries were immediately reported.
The 70-year-old former leader was convicted of 25 murders committed by a military hit squad in the early 1990s and the kidnappings of a businessman and a journalist.
The three-judge court said Tuesday there was no question Fujimori authorized the hit squad's creation and a cover-up of its 50 murders as he crushed the fanatical Shining Path insurgency.
"All the cases have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt," presiding Judge Cesar San Martin told a hushed courtroom.
Fujimori apparently anticipated a guilty verdict. He sat alone taking notes as the verdict was read after a 15-month televised trial.
Fujimori is the first democratically-elected former president to be tried for rights violations in his own country.
He said he would appeal.
His congresswoman daughter, Keiko, says the verdict will only strengthen her campaign for president. She is among front-runners in the 2011 race.
In its first bloody raid, the military death squad Fujimori was convicted of authorizing killed 15 people - including an 8-year-old - with silencer-equipped machine guns during a raid on a barbecue in July 1991 in the Barrios Altos district.
Seven months later, in July 1992, the so-called Colina group "disappeared" nine students and a leftist professor at La Cantuta university.
Fujimori was also convicted of two 1992 kidnappings: the 10-day abduction of businessman Samuel Dyer and the 24-hour abduction of Gustavo Gorriti, a leading journalist who had criticized the president's shuttering of the opposition-led Congress and courts.
Outside the Lima police base where the trial was being held, pro- and anti-Fujimori activists fought each other on the street with sticks, fists and rocks before the melee was broken up by riot police.
Some 30 relatives of victims clashed with about 500 Fujimori supporters. No injuries were immediately reported.
Popular Now in World
- Iran allegedly cuts off Internet access
- Pakistani fishermen reel in 40-foot whale shark
- Iran: We can attack U.S. interests "anywhere"
- Syria rebels bloodied, battered, but defiant
- "Voluptuous" Ukrainian nurse abandons Qaddafi
- Booze and bikinis in a new Egypt
- Girl with Two Heads Born in Philippines
- Cockpit error sent 737 into Pacific nose dive
- Israel To U.S.: Don't Delay Iraq Attack
- 23 women convicted of child pornography in Sweden
- GlobalPost: Qaddafi apparently sodomized
- Stephen Hawking: Heaven is "a fairy story"
- 130 Doctors Without Borders staff go missing
- Syria's Christians stand by Assad
- Greek Cruise Ship Sinks
- Costa Concordia wreck seen from space
Latest CBS News Headlines
on Facebook
on CBS News
- Obama budget: New spending with recycled tax ideas
- Obama budget seeks to boost trade enforcement
- Obama budget seeks to boost trade enforcement
- Norwegians seek A-ha! moment in North Korean music
on Facebook
- Adele sings a cappella for Anderson Cooper
- Occupy protestors kicked out of CPAC
- CPAC: Will Sarah Palin spring a surprise?
- Beyonce and Jay-Z post first photos of Blue Ivy Carter
on CBS News
