Alberto Fujimori, whose decade-long presidency began with righting Peru’s economy and defeating a brutal insurgency only to end in a disgrace, has died. He was 86.
Peru's jailed former President Alberto Fujimori, photographed through a glass window, attends his trial at a police base on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, on June 28, 2016. His daughter Keiko Fujimori announced in a post on X that he died of cancer Wednesday.LIMA, Peru — Alberto Fujimori, whose decade-long presidency began with triumphs righting Peru's economy and defeating a brutal insurgency only to end in a disgrace of autocratic excess that later sent him to prison, has died.
The high-stakes political gambler would lose miserably. He became the first former president in the world to be tried and convicted in his own country for human rights violations. He was not found to have personally ordered the 25 death-squad killings for which he was convicted, but he was deemed responsible because the crimes were committed in his government's name.
He is survived by his four children. The oldest, Keiko, became first lady in 1996 when his father divorced his mother, Susana Higuchi, in a bitter battle in which she accused Fujimori of having her tortured. The youngest child, Kenji, was elected a congressman.Fujimori was born July 28, 1938, Peruvian Independence Day, and his immigrant parents picked cotton until they could open a tailor's shop in downtown Lima.
Once in office, Fujimori's tough talk and hands-on style at first won him only plaudits, as car bombings still ripped through the capital and annual inflation approached 8,000 percent. In April 1992, he shut down Congress and the courts, accusing them of shackling his efforts to defeat the Shining Path and spur economic reforms.
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