The Peruvian Supreme Court rejected a request by former president Alberto Fujimori to have his 25-year prison sentence for human rights violations reviewed, stating Monday there was “no ground” on which to do so.
The move was the second blow to Fujimori in recent days, after an appeal to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest was shot down by a Supreme Court panel Friday.
Fujimori, 75, was convicted in 2009 in the killings of 25 people by a government-backed death squad in the course of Peru’s war against the Maoist Shining Path rebel group.
“The decision was unanimous because there is no ground on which to review the sentence,” said Javier Villa Stein, president of the Permanent Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court.
“There are exceptional cases where new evidence comes up,” he told reporters, but “in the case of the former president, there is no new evidence.”
Fujimori’s lawyer maintained that a review was necessary on grounds that a contradiction existed between decisions handed to the ex-president and those given to other officials convicted in the same cases.
The 76-year-old served as president of Peru from 1990 to 2000, and has been jailed at a police base east of Lima — where he is the only detainee — since 2007.