A Peruvian court sentenced former president Alberto Fujimori to six years in prison for abuse of power and ordered him to pay a fine of 400,000 new soles (around 132,000 US dollars) to the state.

 

In this first ever sentence handed down to Fujimori, the court also barred him from standing for any kind of political office for two years.

 

Pedro Urbina, a spokesman for the Supreme Court of Justice, said the sentence was for Fujimori's role in ordering a warrantless search of the house belonging to the wife of his spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos in November 2000.

 

Fujimori said the sentence was very harsh since he pleaded guilty in this case and he would make a partial appeal to contest the jail sentence and the fine.

 

Urbina began reading the sentence at 3:00 p.m. local time (2000 GMT), a process that lasted 165 minutes, in the special court set up at the National Special Operations Directorate headquarters in a small town some seven km from Peru's capital Lima.

 

Fujimori has been held at the directorate building since his September extradition from neighboring Chile. He had flown there in 2005 from Japan, in the hope that he would be extradited to Peru only on minor charges.

 

Fujimori was also accused of murder, human rights violations and corruption and he pleaded not guilty to all charges. He may face up to 30 years in prison if convicted of the crimes.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2007)