Peru: Fujimori Begs for Clemency Amid Annulled Pardon, Fails to Offer Apology

Peru's former authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori appealed to current President Martín Vizcarra and to judges to not return him to prison because his "heart would not cope" Thursday.

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The former president, 80, who has been found guilty of numerous human rights violations, disappearances, and assassinations, made the appeal after a pardon issued last year was overturned by the country's courts. 

In a video recorded at a private clinic where he is undergoing treatment for heart disease and is under police guard, Fujimori said: "I want to ask the president of the republic and members of the judiciary one thing only: Please, don't kill me." 

"If I return to prison, my heart will not cope. It is too weak to go through the same thing again," he added.

Fujimori was transported by ambulance to a local clinic Wednesday after a judge annulled a pardon granted to him last year and ordered his immediate capture and return to prison to serve the remained of his sentence.

The ruling by Supreme Court Judge Hugo Nunez marked the latest reversal in fortunes for Fujimori, an agricultural engineer who rose to the presidency in 1990 and a decade later resigned by fax from his parents' homeland of Japan as accusations against him mounted.

Following his extradition to Peru in 2007, Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for commanding death squads that massacred civilians in a counterinsurgency campaign during his right-wing government. He was later found guilty of corruption.

Former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski granted Fujimori a humanitarian pardon on Christmas Eve, three days after Kuczynski narrowly survived an impeachment vote with the help of Fujimori's supporters in Congress.

Fujimori's attorney Miguel Perez filed an appeal and requested a suspension of the arrest order Wednesday, on the grounds of his client's failing health.

The pardon had been widely seen as part of a political deal and the family members of the victims of the death squad killings argued it had been granted illegally.

"This re-establishes the right to justice for the family members of the victims," said Carlos Rivera, an attorney for family members of the victims.