Keiko Fujimori is released

The leader of the Peruvian Popular Force party will be released after the Constitutional Court (TC, in Spanish) argued that "it has been based on a decision that defends the effect on personal freedom." In this way, the TC, and by majority, "declared founded the resource of habeas corpus presented by Sachi Fujimori for the release of the leader of the Popular Force," according to La República.

Fujimori was paying a penalty of 18 months of preventive jail, of which she had been serving thirteen for alleged money laundering and for receiving illegal contributions from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. Keiko Fujimori is the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, who is also serving a 25-year sentence for human rights violations and grafting.

Hours earlier, Fujimori had been questioned by provincial prosecutor José Domingo Pérez, on matters related to the contributions of businessmen to her 2011 presidential campaign.

In the interrogation, Fujimori was silent and did not respond to the accusations, arguing through a statement on her social networks that “there are no minimum guarantees of respect for due process. It is no accident that I have scheduled my statement in the decisive week that the Constitutional Court is debating my freedom. I am not going to lend myself to the perverse game of a prosecutor who wants to write a new chapter in his series of abuses and abuses". Given this, her lawyer said that the fact of keeping silent "could not be used against her".

In this way, the magistrates Ernesto Blume, José Luis Sardón, Augusto Ferrero and Carlos Ramos voted in favor; while against it, Eloy Espinosa-Saldaña, Manuel Miranda and Marianella Ledesma voted, as El Comercio recalls.

Although Fujimori will not be free immediately, since several formalities must be fulfilled, it is expected her to leave during the week. In addition, upon hearing the sentence, Fujimori's husband, Mark Vito Villonella, affirmed that “justice has been done, a divine justice. God is great. I want my wife to get out of jail and together go home with my daughters”, the American was on a hunger strike to put pressure on his wife's release.

Also read: Uruguay still doesn't know who its new president is

Fujimori's imprisonment

Fuijimori's imprisonment process was carried out when prosecutor Domingo Pérez accused the leader and her closest circle, belonging to the Popular Force party, of receiving more than one million dollars, illegally given by Odebrecht to finance her presidential campaign 2011. On October 31, Judge Richard Concepción Carhuancho ordered 36 months of pretrial detention, which were later reduced to 18.

Finally, the release of one of the most influential people in Peru occurs in the midst of a heavy political landscape in Peru, as the country prepares to hold legislative elections on January 26, following the decision of President Martín Vizcarra to dissolve Congress "in the midst of a battle with lawmakers over their campaign against grafting," according to Reuters.

There is no doubt that Fujimori returns to the political scene to be the face of those who are against the current president, and as Perfil says, her departure also "means the regrouping of politicians who want a chaotic democracy and use the state" .