Peru’s Fujimori admits irregular payments in trial

LIMA, Peru — Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori acknowledged Monday that he paid his spy chief $15 million in state money to quit as his government collapsed amid a corruption scandal.

Fujimori’s defense lawyer, Cesar Nakazaki, said the 70-year-old ex-president should not be held criminally responsible for the irregular payment to spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos because he later repaid the money.

“I only accept the facts, I do not accept the criminal responsibility, the punishment or the civil reparations,” Fujimori told the court at the start of his embezzlement trial.

Fujimori was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in April for overseeing death squad activity that claimed 25 lives during his 1990-2000 rule as his government fought Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.

He was previously convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to six years for an illegal search.

He faces two more trials for allegedly authorizing illegal phone taps, bribes to congressmen, and secretly buying a TV station for political propaganda with state money.

Chief Prosecutor Alvaro Guillen asked for eight years on the embezzlement charge and that Fujimori pay the state $670,000 in reparations. Guillen said Fujimori paid Montesinos to leave Peru shortly after a video surfaced that showed the spy chief bribing a congressman.

In Peru, prison sentences do not accumulate, so 25 years is the maximum term Fujimori can serve in prison.

Montesinos, the shadowy power behind Fujimori’s 10-year regime, is serving a 20-year term for bribing lawmakers and businessmen and running guns to Colombian rebels.

At the start of Monday’s trial, Fujimori again sat pokerfaced and composed before the three-judge panel. But as the hearing dragged on the graying Fujimori closed his eyes for extended intervals and appeared to sleep.

He looked markedly older Monday than he did at the start of his first, 15-month human rights trial, when he declared his innocence to the court in a full-throated roar.

When first asked to respond to the charges Monday, Fujimori requested a 10-minute medical reprieve. He appeared depressed and ailing from a series of health issues during the long sessions of his last trial.

The third of five trials Fujimori faces, the embezzlement hearings are the first to tackle the web of corruption that brought down his government in 2000. Fujimori says he repaid the $15 million to state coffers before fleeing Peru for Japan in November 2000, two months after the video tape surfaced. Fujimori was arrested in 2005 when he attempted to return to Peru via Chile.

Contacted by telephone by The Associated Press, Nakazaki declined to say if the money Fujimori used to repay the state was his own. Prosecutors questioned how Fujimori, a former university rector, could have legally come up with the money.

Analysts say Fujimori admitted to the irregular payment to avoid a long, drawn-out trial that could damage the presidential chances of his daughter, Keiko. The trial is expected to wrap up by Friday.

Keiko leads several opinion polls on the strength of her father’s lingering popularity for neutralizing the bloody, Shining Path insurgency.

Fujimori is appealing his 25-year sentence. Keiko has said she would pardon her father if elected.