After almost three months of marathon hearing, Peruvian judge Rafael Martínez opened this Saturday a process criminal offense against former President Alberto Fujimori and four former senior officials of his second government for the case of forced sterilizations committed during his term.
According to reports, between 1996 and 2000 there were an estimated 300,000 sterilizations, including more than 272,000 tubal ligation and some 22,000 vasectomies as a poverty reduction policy. Of all of them it is not known exactly how many were forced.
The criminal process of “forced sterilizations”, which started in 2002, has about 1,317 complainants, most of them poor and indigenous women and men.
Fujimori and the other members of his Cabinet are accused of being “alleged perpetrators of the crime against life, body and health, serious injuries followed by death in a context of serious violation of human rights “, declared Martínez.
The Peruvian judiciary later reported that suspended processing until the Government of Chile decides on the extension of his extradition raised by the defense of the ex-president. However, the judicial investigation will continue for the other defendants.
Martínez declared last week that Fujimori, 83 years old and serving a 25-year prison sentence, could not be prosecuted for the “forced sterilizations” for now, because he was not within the extradition agreement between Santiago and Lima by which Fujimori returned to Peru in 2007.
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