Fujimori clings to haven in Japan
Peru's ex-President switches nationality to escape extradition for mass-murder charges at home
Special report: Japan
Jonathan Watts in Tokyo
Sat 15 Sep 2001 22.09 EDT
The former Peruvian President, Alberto Fujimori, was sleeping soundly somewhere in Tokyo last night, secure in the knowledge that his recent discovery of Japanese citizenship will probably guarantee him a sanctuary for life.
The Peruvian supreme court issued an international arrest warrant for the country's former leader last Thursday, alleging he and his secret police chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, had ordered two massacres by the paramilitary in which 25 people died.
Members of the groups that took part in the killings have reportedly testified that Fujimori rewarded the perpetrators and blocked efforts to investigate the murders during his 10-year rule until 2000.
Japan, however, has a policy of never extraditing its own nationals, no matter how heinous the crime. This protection covers Fujimori, even though he was born in Peru and ran for power claiming to be a compatriot of the Peruvian voters. He was recognised as Japanese soon after he fled to Tokyo last November when his birth registration documents were suddenly found in Kumamoto, a region in the south of Japan. The registration, reportedly filed by Fujimori's father, who emigrated to Peru in the 1930s, has been enough for the former President to claim a switch in nationality.
In July his brother-in-law, Victor Aritomi Shinto, a former Peruvian ambassador to Japan, was also naturalised, frustrating attempts by the authorities in Lima to make him answer charges of embezzlement.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/16/japan.jonathanwatts
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