[JURIST] The Peruvian Supreme Court has upheld [decision, in Spanish] a 25-year sentence given to former president Alberto Fujimori [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] after his conviction on charges of ordering assassinations and kidnappings during his 1990-2000 presidency. The First Transitory Criminal Chamber last week unanimously ratified [El Comercio report, in Spanish] the sentence handed down [JURIST report] in April for approving the November 1991 killing of 15 people in Lima's Barrios Altos neighborhood [backgrounder] and the July 1992 kidnapping and murder of 10 people [MIT backgrounder] from Lima's La Cantuta University. The court voted 4-1 [La Republica report, in Spanish] to uphold Fujimori's sentence for the aggravated kidnapping of journalist Gustavo Gorriti [ICIJ profile] and businessman Samuel Dyer Ampudia. The kidnapping, murder and "disappearance" of civilians was part of the so-called "Dirty War" carried out by Fujimora's government against the Maoist Shining Path [BBC backgrounder] rebel group during the 1990s.

In October, Fujimori was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison on multiple counts of illegal wiretapping and bribery [JURIST report], a sentence which he plans to appeal [IPS report, in Spanish]. In July, Fujimori was convicted and sentenced [JURIST report] to seven-and-a-half years in prison for paying former Peruvian intelligence director Vladimiro Montesino [BBC profile] $15 million to resign in 2000 in the midst of the scandal that ultimately resulted in Fujimori's arrest [JURIST report] in 2005. Fujimori's conviction in April of approving the La Cantuta and Barrios Altos killings was met with widespread approval [JURIST report] from the current government and human rights organization. In 2007, Fujimori was convicted [JURIST report] of ordering a warrantless search in 2000 on the apartment of Montesino's wife. Prosecutors alleged that the search was intended to uncover and confiscate documents that might incriminate Fujimori. Fujimori, who was president of Peru from 1990 to 2000, was put on trial after being extradited [JURIST report] in 2007 from Chile, where he flew in 2005 as part of a plan to return to Peru and run again for the presidency after years of self-imposed exile in Japan.