Fujimori Prepared for Peru Comeback

The former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, said yesterday that he wants to stand again for the office he abandoned 20 months ago for a safe haven and citizenship in Japan.

It is the first time that he has expressed the intention of returning since he fled to Tokyo in November 2000 to evade corruption charges.

Since then the Peruvian legal authorities have issued further arrest warrants, accusing him of sanctioning two massacres by death squads in the early 1990s, diverting $15m of defence funds to his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, and dereliction of duty.

Tokyo has rejected extradition requests because Mr Fujimori has taken citizenship in his parents' native country and Japan has a policy of never extraditing its nationals.

But in an interview published yesterday, Mr Fujimori said he was keen to go back of his own accord.

"In the near future I think the people will realise that the suspicions are false, and if that happens I would like to return to the country and run for office," he told the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun.

In his early years in office, Mr Fujimori won popularity by taming hyperinflation, suppressing terrorism and making peace with Ecuador. He remains popular with many working class Peruvians.

"There should be no doubt: the goal is the return of Alberto Fujimori to Peru for the presidential campaign in 2006," his former press adviser, Carlos Raffo, told reporters.