Peru renews calls on Japan to extradite Fujimori

Japan Policy & Politics, August 19, 2002

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 16 Kyodo

Peru has renewed its calls on Japan to extradite deposed Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who faces charges including murder, bribery and embezzlement in Peru, media reports from Peru said Thursday.

President Alejandro Toledo made the request Wednesday when he met new Japanese Ambassador to Peru Yubun Narita, who submitted to the president a Japanese government letter accrediting his assignments, the reports said.

Toledo was quoted as telling the ambassador that it is one of Peru's priorities to get Fujimori back to the country to face trials there.

The Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun reported Tuesday that Fujmori, who fled to Japan in self-exile, has expressed his strong intent to run in the 2006 presidential election once he returns to Peru.

Japan has rejected repeated requests from the Peruvian government to hand over Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants from Kumamoto Prefecture, on the grounds that the former president has Japanese citizenship and thus can stay in the country indefinitely.

Peru and Japan have no extradition treaty.

Fujimori arrived in Japan on Nov. 17, 2000, while in office, on an unscheduled visit after briefly attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in Brunei.

Fujimori has been indicted on charges of ordering his former top aide and alleged spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos to pay bribes from public coffers to current and former lawmakers to secure a congressional majority, as well as abandonment of office and dereliction of duty.

He faces two other charges of murder and kidnapping in connection with his alleged sanctioning of two massacres by a paramilitary death squad in the early 1990s, and diverting $15 million in defense funds to Montesinos in September 2000 for his ''work'' as a close aide.