Lima (Peru), Sep 12: Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori died at the age of 86 in Lima “after a long battle against cancer,” confirmed his daughter and political leader Keiko Fujimori.
“Our father, Alberto Fujimori, has just departed to meet the Lord,” Keiko wrote on X on Wednesday. Hours before his death, the spokesperson for the Fuerza Popular party, Miguel Torres, said that the former president was in a “delicate” state and going through “a difficult time,” reports Xinhua news agency Fujimori, who served as Peru’s President from 1990 to 2000, was released from prison last December, where he was serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity.
During the war on terrorism in Peru, he played a crucial role against the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru leftist rebels. This conflict resulted in more than 69,000 deaths and 21,000 disappearances from 1980 to 2000, with the majority of the victims being civilians, as reported by a government truth commission. Fujimori, who was of Japanese descent, was famously called ‘el Chino’, or the Chinese man by many Peruvians. Following his demise on Wednesday, his supporters gathered outside his home and started chanting, “El Chino did not die! El Chino is present!” Notably, last month, his daughter announced that Fujimori would run for President again in 2026.
IANS