Peru declares 3 days of national mourning for former President Alberto Fujimori

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s government on Thursday declared three days of national mourning over the death of former President Alberto Fujimori and granted him a state funeral despite his convictions for human rights abuses and corruption.

Fujimori, who governed the South American country with an increasingly authoritarian hand between 1990 and 2000, died of cancer Wednesday at a home in the capital, Lima. He was freed from prison in December following a court ruling that granted him a pardon on humanitarian grounds.

His coffin was taken Thursday to the Ministry of Culture to lie in state until Saturday. Riot police and about 50 supporters surrounded the hearse as it moved through the streets of Lima.

Fujimori’s daughter Keiko and son Kenji followed the flag-draped coffin as pallbearers carried it into the ministry. The siblings were met by President Dina Boluarte.

The government’s decision to honor Fujimori, including an order to fly all flags on public buildings at half-staff, was published Thursday in the federal register.

Fujimori, a former university president and mathematics professor, emerged from obscurity to win Peru’s 1990 elections over writer Mario Vargas Llosa. He took over a country ravaged by runaway inflation and guerrilla violence, mending the economy with bold actions, including mass privatizations of state industries. He also defeated fanatical Shining Path communist rebels, winning broad-based support.

But his political career ended in disgrace. After briefly shutting down Congress and elbowing himself into a controversial third term, he fled the country in 2000, when leaked videotapes showed his spy chief bribing lawmakers. He went to Japan, the land of his parents, and famously faxed in his resignation.

He was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for being the mastermind behind the slayings of 25 Peruvians while the government fought the Shining Path. The accusations against him led to years of legal wrangling, and he remained a polarizing figure throughout.

After his family announced his death at age 86, dozens of his supporters stood outside the house where he died and sang a song praising his government. Among them was businessman César Aquije, who held a sign that read “gratitude, engineer Alberto Fujimori” next to a heart in the colors of Peru’s flag.

“I remember the schools he built and the roads,” Aquije, 55, said.

Meanwhile, the sister of one of the 25 people whose deaths were linked to Fujimori criticized him and the government’s decision to honor him.

“Fujimori dies, convicted of human rights violations and corruption, and a murderous government like the one in the 90s pays tribute to him,” Gisela Ortiz posted on X. “Official messages of regret when there is impunity for his crimes.”

Boluarte, who became president in December 2022 and has an abysmal approval rating, has survived seven attempts by Parliament to remove her from office thanks to the protection of a coalition of political groups, including the party led by Fujimori’s children.

Oncologist José Gutiérrez, who treated Fujimori, told reporters the politician suffered from cancer in his tongue that spread to his lungs after he underwent surgery in July for a hip fracture caused by a fall.

In December, Peru’s Constitutional Court ruled in favor of a humanitarian pardon granted to Fujimori on Christmas Eve in 2017 by then-President Pablo Kuczynski. Wearing a face mask and receiving supplemental oxygen, Fujimori walked out of the prison door and got in a sport utility vehicle.

He was last seen in public on Sept. 4 as he left a hospital in a wheelchair. He told reporters that he had undergone a CT scan, and when asked if his planned 2026 presidential candidacy was still going ahead, he smiled and said, “We’ll see, we’ll see.”

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Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Franklin Briceño, The Associated Press