Peru court orders ‘immediate’ release of ex-president Alberto Fujimori from jail

Ruling defies international court, which has said that Fujimori cannot be pardoned due to his conviction for human rights crimes

Peru risks being ranked alongside authoritarian states like Venezuela and Nicaragua, lawyers have warned, if it flouts international law by freeing former president Alberto Fujimori from jail after its highest court ordered his immediate release".

In the latest chapter of a drawn-out legal saga, Peru's constitutional court ruled on Tuesday to free the former authoritarian leader who, since 2009, has been serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and ordering massacres committed by an army death squad in the early 1990s.