IPS-English CHILE-PERU: Despite Judge's Ruling, Fujimori No Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:29:04 -0700 ROMAIPS LA HD IP CHILE-PERU: Despite Judge's Ruling, Fujimori No Nearer to Lima Daniela Estrada* SANTIAGO, Jul 11 (IPS) - In a surprise move, Chilean judge Orlando Álvarez this Wednesday turned down Peru's request for the extradition of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), disregarding a recommendation from Chile's own Supreme Court prosecutors. ”We are disappointed and surprised at minister (judge) Álvarez's decision,” Sergio Laurenti, executive director of the Chilean chapter of human rights watchdog Amnesty International, told IPS. ”Fujimori stands accused of generalised, systematic human rights violations, constituting crimes against humanity, throughout his presidency,” he said. Laurenti said that ”Amnesty has documented hundreds of cases of forced disappearances, torture and abuses committed (in Peru) during his administration, so we hope that, if Chile does not extradite Fujimori, it will live up to its obligation to investigate these crimes and put the former president on trial for them.” ”We've lost the battle, but not the war,” said Peru's Justice Minister María Zavala, the first official in that country to react publicly to Álvarez's decision. A source from the minister's office told IPS that the news hit ”like a bucket of cold water” during a Cabinet meeting with Peru's President Alan García. Zavala told the Peruvian that ”we have already instructed our attorneys in Chile to file the corresponding legal challenges.” Fujimori has been a fugitive from Peruvian justice since 2001. He is wanted in Peru to answer charges on 10 counts of corruption and two of crimes against humanity, committed during his presidency. Chile's Supreme Court prosecutor, Mónica Maldonado, threw out only one case, and accepted as valid the evidence in respect to the massacres at La Cantuta University and in Barrios Altos, as well as the other nine cases of corruption with which Fujimori is charged. The former head of state arrived unexpectedly in Chile on Nov. 6, 2005, from Japan, where he had taken refuge. He was immediately arrested and kept in preventive detention while the justice system in Peru prepared its case requesting his extradition. The extradition trial began in January 2006. In a 50-page legal report delivered on Jun. 7, prosecutor Maldonado made her non-binding recommendation to judge Álvarez to proceed with the extradition of Peru's former president, because there was sufficient evidence to put him on trial for 11 of the 12 charges presented. However Álvarez, the examining magistrate, found in his decision released this Wednesday that the former Peruvian president cannot be proved to have participated in any of the crimes. ”It can be concluded that these submissions do not duly demonstrate the participation of Alberto Fujimori as charged in the extradition request, in any of the crimes included in the 12 cases,” Álvarez states on the penultimate page of the document. ”Therefore it may be deduced that this lawsuit has not provided (enough) evidence that the accused in this case has committed the illegal acts attributed to him,” he adds. After sorting out an administrative hold-up preventing Álvarez from announcing his decision until Wednesday, the Supreme Court spokesman, Cristián Fuenzalida, said that ”in a decision based on 122 considerations, minister Álvarez has denied the request of the Peruvian government (to extradite) Alberto Fujimori.” ”Minister Álvarez's decision will now be reviewed by the second criminal chamber of the Supreme Court, independently of whether or not one of the parties appeals the ruling,” Fuenzalida said. During this period Fujimori ”will be held under preventative house arrest,” he added. Fujimori's Chilean defence lawyers, Gabriel Zaliasnik and Francisco Veloso, said they were pleased and satisfied with the decision. Zaliasnik said that ”for the first time,” Fujimori had been tried by an ”independent” judiciary. The former president himself released a press statement Wednesday afternoon saying he welcomed the decision ”joyfully, but also prudently.” ”Having expressed my respect for the Chilean judicial branch's proceedings, I shall abstain from commenting on its decisions, which I have always deferred to and will continue to defer to,” he said. Alfredo Etcheberry, the Peruvian government's lawyer who was waiting for judge Álvarez's decision in Chile, said he was taken ”absolutely by surprise,” because the decision is ”diametrically opposed” to prosecutor Maldonado's recommendation. Etcheberry said that the reaction should be to ”stay calm and seek out the weak points in the decision, and ask the Supreme Court to rectify it.” He said he would present an injunction against the ruling. For his part, Chile's Interior Minister, Belisario Velasco, minutes before the denial of the extradition request was made known, said that there was no need for relations with Peru to suffer, whatever judicial decision was reached. This was reaffirmed later by President Michelle Bachelet herself. ”There is no reason why any legal decision of any kind should affect relations (with Peru), as long as our relations are based on a common working agenda which is of mutual interest to both governments,” Bachelet said. Jurists and human rights activists in Peru say the ruling was based broadly on Fujimori's defence team's arguments and ignored conclusive testimonies about his responsibility for human rights crimes. Judge Álvarez did not admit a statement from General Nicólas Hermoza, who from 1991 to 1998 was president of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and head of the Peruvian army. Hermoza had declared that Fujimori had information about the crimes at La Cantuta and Barrios Altos and was kept informed about the operations because he spent long periods living at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Service. Hermoza said Fujimori never spoke out against the assassinations that had come to light as a result of investigations by the media. And Major Santiago Martín Rivas, in testimony before the Supreme Court in May, said Fujimori was fully aware of the crimes committed by the Colina group, and even congratulated the officers who headed the unit and recommended that they be promoted for their contribution to the fight against leftist insurgent groups. ”It's a fateful day for those of us who are fighting impunity,” Gisela Ortiz, sister of Luis Enrique Ortiz, a victim of La Cantuta massacre, told IPS. ”Judge Álvarez's resolution is a shameful decision that has no legal merit and he has used false information to sustain it.” Former assistant prosecutor Ronald Gamarra, who investigated the human rights charges attributed to Fujimori, told IPS that there was no lack of merit in the crimes presented by Peru: ”The legal foundations were correct; what was lacking was an accompaniment of political will to push for the extradition,” he said. *Ángel Páez contributed reporting from Lima. ***** + RIGHTS-CHILE: Fujimori - One Step Closer to Extradition to Peru (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38087) + RIGHTS-PERU: Fujimori in the General's Labyrinth (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37674) + PERU: Fujimori Denies Knowledge of Military Abuses (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37242) (END/IPS/LA/IP HD/TRASP-VD-LD/DE-AP/DM/07) = 07120523 ORP003 NNNN