Congress Members Waiting For the Fujimori Pardon Casefile

Members of Peru’s national congress say they are still waiting to see the casefile for Fujimori’s pardon.

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Marisa Glave and Indira Huilca of the left-leaning New Peru political party sent a request to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (MJHR) to review the pardon of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) in early January.

They said today via their twitter accounts they have yet to hear a governmental response.

“We sent the request to the MJHR asking for the case file for (Fujimori’s) pardon”, tweeted Glave. “We hope we aren’t denied the right to review the documents as was the People’s Defense. What irregularities are hidden in the file?” questioned the congresswoman.

Glave says the People’s Defense also sent a request to MJHR to review the Fujimori case three weeks ago, but the state oversight agency was denied by the ministry.

The MJHR responded to the request that it wished to “protect the family of the beneficiary” and closed the door on the case request.

“The Ministry of Justice should be more transparent with the Fujimori pardon casefile,” says Huilca in a tweet. “The culture of secrecy reinforces that there only political justifications for the move, not humanitarian ones,” she adds.

“For the health of the country’s democracy of the country we should have access to the file. What better way to exercise authority than through transparency. The (People’s Defense) is requesting something well within the norms of the constitution” tweets, Huilca.

Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori with a "humanitarian pardon", supposedly for medical reasons on Dec. 24.

The presidential pardon came just after Congress narrowly voted to not impeach Kuczynski for allegedly receiving nearly US$800,000 in kickbacks from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

The pardon and prior failed impeachment are widely seen as a political maneuver by Fujimori’s son, Kenji, himself a current Congress member, to salvage Kuczynski so the president would be forced to pardon his father in return.

Prior to Fujimori’s pardon, he had been serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity, a term he began in 2009.

New Peru announced today on its website that the party will “continue to take to the streets against the illegal and immoral pardon and the corrupt and impune pact.”

“We won’t stop protesting until the pardon is annulled, for the memory of the victims” (of Fujimori) “who have been stepped on by Mr. Kuczynski” reads the party’s public statement.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, IACHR, which indicted Fujimori has said Kuczynski's move violates international law. The regional court will hold a hearing regarding the pardon on Feb. 2.