Peru’s ailing ex-president Fujimori pardoned

LIMA: Peru’s jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and rights abuses, has been pardoned on humanitarian grounds, the presidency said Sunday.

The announcement came after Fujimori’s son Kenji split the opposition vote in parliament, allowing President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to avoid impeachment and sparking speculation about a pardon as political payback.

“The president of the republic... has decided to grant a humanitarian pardon to Mr Alberto Fujimori and seven other people in similar condition,” the presidency said in a statement that did not name the other recipients.

A medical team “determined that Mr Fujimori suffers from a progressive, degenerative and incurable illness and that prison conditions represent a grave risk to his life,” the statement said. Kenji Fujimori hailed the decision.

“On behalf of the Fujimori family, I would like to thank President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for the noble and magnanimous gesture of giving my father Alberto the humanitarian pardon,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

His sister, opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, also expressed her delight. “Today is a great day for my family and for Fujimorism. Finally my father is free. This will be a Christmas of hope and joy!!!”, she wrote on social media.