Higuchi 'free'

Lima - President Alberto Fujimori's office denied his wife Susana Higuchi's assertion that she was a prisoner of Government Palace by saying she could come and go as she pleased. Ms Higuchi, stripped of her duties as Peru's first lady, had complained that the doors used by her staff had been welded shut. Mr Fujimori's office said: 'Her encounters with the press and opposition leaders can be held in any other place, at whatever time she pleases, as nothing impedes her from entering and leaving Government Palace 24 hours a day.' Reuter