CHILE:A Chilean prosecutor has recommended that former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori be extradited back to Peru, opening the way for him to face charges of corruption and human rights violations allegedly committed while he was chief of state.
On Thursday a Chilean supreme court judge ordered Mr Fujimori to be placed under house arrest. The former president has been detained in Chile since late 2005, awaiting the outcome of his extradition case.
Mr Fujimori, now 68, was an obscure rector at an agricultural college when he won a long-shot bid for the presidency in 1990. He was a colourful and autocratic figure during the decade he served as president.
His administration routed left-wing guerrillas and helped revive Peru's economy, but critics say he also was corrupt and brutal, dissolving parliament and dispatching death squads in the name of fighting terrorism.
The prosecutor's finding on Thursday was a major victory for the current Peruvian government's attempt to force him to answer those charges.
"Time has showed us correct, and now we must allow Chilean justice to act," Peruvian foreign minister José Antonio Garcia Belaúnde told reporters in Lima.
The 50-page extradition finding by Chilean state prosecutor Mónica Maldonado is nonbinding, but authorities said it will hold great sway with the tribunal assigned to decide on the extradition request. The prosecutor found that Peru had submitted sufficient evidence to warrant extradition of Mr Fujimori for both corruption and violations of human rights.
Peruvian authorities say Mr Fujimori embezzled millions of dollars from the country while he was president and that he bears responsibility for two massacres, one at a university campus and one in a Lima neighbourhood, Barrios Altos, that left a total of 25 people dead.
Some of the embezzled funds allegedly ended up in the hands of Mr Fujimori's ex-intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, now imprisoned in Lima on corruption, arms smuggling and other charges.
The extradition process, which has already lasted 18 months, has been an extremely sensitive matter among two neighbouring, but rival nations. Chile and Peru have a disputed maritime boundary and lingering bad blood from a 19th-century war won by Chile, resulting in it annexing a large chunk of Peruvian territory.
Mr Fujimori's lawyer, Francisco Velozo, downplayed the result as a "necessary step," but stressed that it was far from the end of the matter. Mr Fujimori's daughter, Keiko Fujimori, a Peruvian MP, said she had spoken with her father, who is free on bail.
"We're keeping up a positive spirit," she said in Lima.
Relatives of people slain during Mr Fujimori's regime were planning a march in front of the Chilean embassy in Lima to demand that the ex-president be brought back to face trial.