A Peruvian judge ruled this Friday (3) that the former dictator Alberto Fujimori cannot be tried on the accusation of having promoted a mass sterilization campaign for indigenous people during the period in which he was in power, between 1990 and 2000.
The justification presented by magistrate Rafael Martinez is in the fact that this accusation was not part of the request that based the extradition of Fujimori from Chile, in 2007.
The former Peruvian dictator had sought refuge in Chilean territory to avoid being tried for a series of crimes committed during his rule.
According to the judge, the trial in the case of mass sterilizations can only go ahead if authorized by the Chilean Supreme Court, which authorized the extradition 14 years ago.
Fujimori, 83, is serving a 25-year prison sentence after being convicted of corruption and human rights violations.
The sterilization scandal would have occurred in the final phase of Fujimori’s government. According to the indictment, at least 270,000 indigenous women were induced to undergo surgery so that they could no longer have children, as part of a forced birth reduction program in the Andean country.
The accusation made by human rights groups and indigenous peoples is that most of them did not have enough information to know the consequences of the surgery. Many didn’t even speak Spanish.
There would also have been at least 18 deaths among women undergoing the procedures.
The lawsuit against Fujimori over the sterilizations began in 2002, and has since progressed with apprehensions. The court decision puts a new question mark on its progress.
The magistrate did not comment on the other six defendants in the case, including three former ministers of health.
Fujimori is a highly polarizing figure in Peruvian society. During his government, the country registered high rates of economic growth, which at first made him popular.
At the same time, it was a period marked by authoritarianism, corruption, abuses of civil liberties and democratic backlash. Fujimori even closed Congress during his administration.
His daughter Keiko Fujimori is the country’s top right-wing leader, and she narrowly lost the last presidential election to the current head of state, leftist Pedro Castillo.
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