LIMA, Peru (AP) — The Peruvian government declared three days of national mourning on Thursday over the death of former president Alberto Fujimori and gave him a state funeral despite his convictions for human rights abuses and corruption.
Fujimori, who ruled the South American country with an increasingly authoritarian hand between 1990 and 2000, died of cancer on Wednesday in a home in the capital, Lima. He was released from prison in December after a court ruled that pardoned him for humanitarian reasons.
His coffin was taken to the Ministry of Culture on Thursday to lie in state until Saturday. Riot police and about 50 supporters surrounded the hearse as it drove through the streets of Lima.
Fujimori’s daughter Keiko and son Kenji followed the flag-draped coffin as pallbearers carried him into the ministry. The siblings were received by President Dina Boluarte.
The government’s decision to honor Fujimori, including an order to fly all flags on public buildings at half-mast, was published Thursday in the Federal Register.
Fujimori, a former university president and mathematics professor, emerged from obscurity to win Peru’s 1990 election against writer Mario Vargas Llosa. He took over a country wracked by runaway inflation and guerrilla violence, and revived the economy with bold moves that included massive privatizations of state-owned companies. He also defeated fanatical communist rebels from the Shining Path, winning broad support.
But his political career ended in disgrace. After briefly shutting down Congress and maneuvering himself into a controversial third term, he fled the country in 2000 when leaked video tapes showed his spy chief bribes lawmakers. He went to Japan, the country of his parents, and faxed his resignation.
He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2009 for masterminding the murder of 25 Peruvians as the government fought against the Shining Path. The charges against him led to years of legal wrangling and he remained a polarizing figure.
After his family announced his death at the age of 86, dozens of his supporters stood outside the house where he died and sang a song praising his government. Among them was businessman César Aquije, who held a sign reading “gratitude, engineer Alberto Fujimori” next to a heart in the colors of the Peruvian flag.
“I remember the schools he built and the roads,” said Aquije, 55.
Meanwhile, the sister of one of the 25 people whose deaths were linked to Fujimori criticized him and the government’s decision to honor him.
“Fujimori dies, convicted of human rights violations and corruption, and a murderous government like the one in the 90s pays tribute to him,” Gisela Ortiz posted on X. “Official messages of regret while there is impunity for his crimes.”
Boluarte, who became president in December 2022 and has a dismal approval rating, but has survived seven attempts by parliament to remove her from office thanks to the protection of a coalition of political groups, including the party led by Fujimori’s children.
Oncologist José Gutiérrez, who treated Fujimori, told reporters that the politician was suffering from cancer in his tongue, which had spread to his lungs after he underwent surgery in July to repair a hip fracture sustained in a fall.
In December, Peru’s Constitutional Court ruled in favor of a humanitarian pardon granted to Fujimori by then-President Pablo Kuczynski on Christmas Eve 2017. Wearing a face mask and receiving supplemental oxygen, Fujimori walked out of the prison and into an SUV.
He was last seen in public on September 4, when he left a hospital in a wheelchair. He told reporters he had undergone a CT scan and, when asked if his planned 2026 presidential bid was still going ahead, he smiled and said, “We’ll see, we’ll see.”
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Associated Press editor Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed to this report.