Peru's Fujimori says he is innocent of killings

updated 7:37 p.m. ET Dec. 10, 2007

LIMA, Peru - Waving his arms in outrage and shouting that he is innocent, Alberto Fujimori went on trial Monday on charges of using a death squad to kill leftist guerrillas and collaborators.

It is the first time in Peru's history that a former president faces a trial for crimes committed during his administration — and one of the few cases of a Latin American leader being tried after leaving office. The case is stirring mixed emotions in a country where many still admire Fujimori for defeating a bloody insurgency.

Fujimori faces charges he authorized the 1992 death-squad slayings of nine students and a professor at La Cantuta University, and the 1991 killings of 15 people in a tenement in Lima's Barrios Altos neighborhood. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison.

He also is charged with ordering the kidnapping of a prominent journalist and a businessman, who were interrogated by army intelligence agents and released. Fujimori, 69, denies any involvement.

The former Peruvian leader strode into court exactly on time Monday, with the same air of authority he displayed as president.

Wearing a pinstriped suit, Fujimori took his seat at a small table with a microphone and immediately started taking notes as the prosecution and defense began their arguments.

As the morning session drew to a close, Fujimori, who had shown no emotion until that point, asked permission to speak. Standing and waving his arms in outrage, he said he had received a nation on the edge of anarchy when he took office.

'I am innocent'
"I received a country ... almost in collapse, exhausted by hyperinflation, international financial isolation and widespread terrorism," he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

"My government rescued the human rights of 25 million Peruvians with no exceptions. If any detestable acts were committed, I condemn them, but they were not done on my orders. I reject the charges totally. I am innocent and do not accept the prosecutor's accusation," he shouted angrily as the chief justice called him to order.

Chief Justice Cesar San Martin later suspended the trial until Wednesday morning after Fujimori underwent a medical exam and was found to be suffering from high blood pressure, a headache and a sore throat.

Three of Fujimori's four children attended _ congresswoman Keiko, daughter Sachi and son Kenji _ and about 60 supporters gathered to chant slogans at two entrances to the police base on the eastern outskirts of Lima, where Fujimori also is being held.

Defense attorney Cesar Nakazaki said he would call witnesses from the armed forces and anti-terrorism police to rebut the prosecution's claim that Fujimori authorized a clandestine dirty war against the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.

But he said the army may have decided, without Fujimori's consent, to use a "dirty war ... as a strategy against terrorism in a meeting at army headquarters in June 1991."