Wednesday August 29, 2001 |

LIMA, Peru - With homicide charges against former President Alberto Fujimori imminent, Peruvian officials are considering how to persuade Japan to turn over the exiled leader to account for alleged crimes against humanity, the prime minister said yesterday.

"We are going to continue our efforts to extradite ex-President Fujimori. We know it is a legally complicated issue, which is why we have a team of people working on the matter," Roberto Danino told foreign correspondents.

In a special session Monday night, Peru's Congress voted unanimously to lift Fujimori's immunity so he can face homicide and forced disappearance charges in relation to two, state-sponsored massacres in the early 1990s.

Prosecutors must file the charges within five days.

But Fujimori has been in his parents' native Japan since November when his 10-year-old government collapsed under the weight of mounting corruption scandals, and his extradition to Peru appears unlikely.

Japan announced Fujimori was entitled to citizenship shortly after he arrived, and Japanese law prohibits the extradition of its citizens to stand trial for crimes committed in other countries.

"While Japan can take that position on principle, there are a series of international treaties to which Japan is a signatory," Danino said. ''When we have the legal route laid out and established, we will push their compliance with the treaties, so Fujimori can be brought to justice."

Fujimori, who so far only faces charges of abandonment of office and dereliction of duty, denies any wrongdoing.

Peruvian legal experts argue that Japan would have to try Fujimori in its own courts or send him to an international tribunal for charges of crimes against humanity in compliance with international treaties.

But a senior official in the Japanese Justice Ministry's international division, who spoke on condition he not be named, ruled out the possibility of trying Fujimori in Japan for any crimes allegedly committed in Peru.

The official said unless the Japanese government has jurisdiction over the crimes in question, the suspect couldn't be tried in Japan.

Japan signed an international treaty against torture in 1999, but it is only obliged to hand over suspects accused of torture that took place after the country joined the pact, the official said. The charges this week against Fujimori will be for death-squad killings in 1991 and 1992.

The official also said that since Japan has not signed the U.N. treaty on international human rights tribunals, it would not be authorized to extradite Fujimori to an international human rights court such as the one in The Hague, Netherlands.