Peru's former president Alberto Fujimori dead at 86
The coffin of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was transported to a wake in Lima, with the nation deeply divided over his controversial legacy.
Fujimori, 86, died of cancer, said his daughter and former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori.
Hundreds of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori supporters lined up to pay their respects at his wake.
People waited outside the culture ministry building where the wake took place, waving Peruvian flags and chanting slogans in honor of the leader they credit with defeating the Shining Path insurgency and stabilizing the economy in the 1990s.
After confirming the death of former President Alberto Fujimori, the Presidency of Peru shared a message, in which it extended its condolences to the family of the former dictator.
The Peruvian government declared a three-day national mourning for the death of the former president and his remains will be watched over until Saturday at the National Museum in Lima, to be later transferred to a cemetery in the south of the city.
The former president spent 16 years in prison and was released in December thanks to a controversial humanitarian pardon, which cut short a 25-year sentence for two massacres of people during his government, amid the fight against leftist guerrillas.
A slew of corruption scandals during Fujimori’s 10-year administration also turned public opinion against him.
After videos emerged of the scandal, Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 and resigned by fax from Tokyo.
After five years in exile, he decided to head back to Peru, hoping to make a comeback.
But he was detained during a layover in Chile and extradited to Peru.
Later, in 2009, he was convicted of ordering the massacre of 25 people during his administration’s fight against Maoist rebels and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
However he was released last year on a humanitarian pardon by Peru's constitutional court, despite criticism from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to block the pardon.
