Fujimori corruption trial begins in Peru

LIMA, Peru — Former President Alberto Fujimori, who already faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison, went on trial again Monday, charged with authorizing wiretaps and bribes of politicians, journalists and businessmen.

Prosecutors charge Fujimori and his former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos used state funds to secretly wiretap 28 politicians, journalists and businessmen, bribe 13 congressmen to join Fujimori’s party and buy off a TV station and a newspaper editorial board for political propaganda.

The 71-year-old former president wore a crisp blue suit and golden tie, closing his eyes and appearing to sleep as chief prosecutor Jose Pelaez named many of the 153 witnesses he plans to call — including Montesinos and Fujimori’s ex-wife.

Democratically elected in 1990, Fujimori ruled Peru with an increasingly iron fist until his corruption-riddled government collapsed in 2000 when a videotape surfaced showing Montesinos bribing a congressmen.

Fujimori has battled a series of health problems during his three previous trials.

In the past two years, a Supreme Court panel has convicted Fujimori of crimes against humanity for authorizing military death squads, of abuse of power for an illegal search and of embezzlement for paying his spy chief $15 million in state funds.

Peruvian prison sentences do not accumulate, so the 25-year murder and kidnapping sentence Fujimori received in the death-squad trial is the maximum term he can serve.

Prosecutors say they will seek an eight-year sentence on the three corruption counts and that Fujimori pay $1.7 million to the state and $1 million to be shared between the 28 people whose phone lines were illegally tapped.

Montesinos used intimidation and bribery to bend generals, judges, politicians, TV and newspaper men to Fujimori’s will. He is now serving a 20-year term for bribing lawmakers and businessmen and selling weapons to Colombian rebels.

During Fujimori’s murder and kidnapping trial, Montesinos testified that neither he nor Fujimori were responsible for death squad killings.

But in his July embezzlement trial, Fujimori blamed Montesinos for blackmailing him into making the illegal $15 million payoff.

Fujimori claimed that Montesinos had turned on him and was bribing congressmen to support a military coup against Fujimori. He said he repaid the illegal payoff with money found in the headquarters of Montesinos’ feared spy agency.

Acknowledging those crimes while denying responsibility let Fujimori avoid a long trial that could hurt the chances of his daughter, Keiko in the 2011 presidential election.

Keiko Fujimori has led several opinion polls, largely on the strength of her father’s lingering popularity for neutralizing the brutal, Maoist Shining Path insurgency. She has said she would pardon her father if elected president.

In April, the court ruled Fujimori authorized the creation of a death squad that killed suspected rebels and their sympathizers in the early 1990s. Fujimori is appealing the convictions.

Fujimori’s lawyer has repeatedly called the three-judge Supreme Court panel’s rulings politically motivated, but last week Peru’s Supreme Court rejected a suit he filed in attempt to remove the judges.

Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 as his government collapsed. He attempted to return in 2005 only to be arrested in Chile and extradited to Peru in 2007.