SANTIAGO, Chile – A Chilean Supreme Court judge on Wednesday rejected Peru's request to extradite Alberto Fujimori on charges of corruption and human rights violations, but the former Peruvian president remains under house arrest pending final word from a five-judge panel in three months.
Judge Orlando Alvarez issued the extensive ruling favoring Fujimori, who is wanted in Peru on charges including bribery, misuse of government funds and sanctioning 25 death squad killings during his decade-long rule that ended in 2000.
Defense lawyer Gabriel Zaliasnik said the judge obviously wasn't persuaded that Fujimori was involved in any of these acts.
Congressman Carlos Raffo, with Fujimori's Alliance for the Future party in Peru, advised allies to react with caution, figuring appeals from the Peruvian government are likely.
Fujimori, 68, remains under house arrest in a luxury condominium near Chile's capital. He has long sought to return to the presidency in Peru, but said he'll first run for parliament in Japan, where he fled as his government collapsed under a flurry of scandals.
"I still have my followers in Peru, and many of them are happy because a political party in such an important country as Japan has called on me to run. This is something very important for them," Fujimori, who holds both Peruvian and Japanese citizenship, told The Associated Press last month.
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