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 on Sunday.

The announcement came after Fujimori’s son Kenji split the opposition vote in parliament, allowing Peru­vian 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 pardon 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.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2017