Peru judge bars Fujimori from leaving country once released

A Peruvian judge has banned former President Alberto Fujimori from leaving the country for 18 months as soon as he leaves a prison where he has been serving a 25-year sentence for murder

A Peruvian judge on Thursday banned former President Alberto Fujimori from leaving the country for 18 months as soon as he leaves a prison where he has been serving a 25-year sentence for murder.

Fujimori is expected to be released soon under a Constitutional Court order that last week revived a humanitarian pardon granted in 2017 by then-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

Judge Miluska Cano of the Fourth Criminal Chamber ordered that Fujimori may not leave Peru “for 18 months.”

Once released, the former president must face a new trial on charges of being the intellectual author of the murder of six peasants during his 1990-2000 administration.

Fujimori had been serving a 25-year prison sentence since 2007 for the murder of 25 Peruvians executed during his government by a clandestine military squad that killed with impunity while fighting the Shining Path terrorist group.

Last week, the Constitutional Court ordered Fujimori released after a controversial decision whose arguments have not yet been published. The release shortens the sentence of Fujimori by a decade, since he was to be released from prison in February 2032.