MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Former Peruvian president trial on recess 'til Wednesday

Fujimori attends his trial at the Special Police Headquarters

Peru's former president Alberto Fujimori angrily shouted his innocence at the start of his trial Monday on accusations of murder and kidnapping stemming from a 1990s “dirty war” against communist rebels. However the presiding judge called a recess until Wednesday after he was diagnosed high blood pressure.

"I declare myself innocent," he said in a fiery outburst in the court on Lima's outskirts when asked how he pleaded. "I don't accept the charges against me.... I never ordered the death of anybody," he said, gesticulating wildly in the specially renovated room in a police building fitted with new wood panels, carpet and two television cameras. Fujimori complained of feeling ill after his dramatic affirmations, and a court doctor diagnosed high blood pressure requiring 24 hours' rest. The presiding judge called a recess until Wednesday, when the court is to continue examining charges that Fujimori ordered abductions and killings by death squad when his government was putting down a bloody insurgency. Fujimori, 69, faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. It is the first time a Peruvian former head of state has been tried for actions carried out while he was in office. The trial is the culmination of an extraordinary series of events since the former president fled his country at the end of 2000, after 10 years in power, as his regime was imploding amid a corruption scandal. After five years in Japan, he traveled to Chile in 2005, where he was arrested. After a long legal battle, Fujimori was extradited to Peru in September and has been in custody ever since. Supporters of the former leader were vocal in hailing his fight against the "terrorists" of the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru communist movements, and in calling for him to be freed. Around 100 of them held vigils outside the gates of the complex where the trial is being held and carried placards saying: "Fujimori, innocent." Others let off firecrackers in the dirt streets while riot police stood watch. Fujimori is accused of ordering an army death squad to kill 15 people at a party in a Lima suburb in 1991 and 10 people -- nine students and their professor -- taken from La Cantuta University in the capital in 1992. The prosecution is demanding he pay 33 million dollars in damages to the victims' families as well as serve 30 years behind bars if convicted. In addition, Fujimori faces charges over the 1992 abduction and interrogation of a prominent journalist and a businessman opposed to his regime, and several counts of corruption. His outburst at the moment of his plea were in sharp contrast with the air of studied dignity he had been exhibiting for the first three hours of proceedings, during which he said nothing and took notes. As well as protesting his innocence, Fujimori launched into an impassioned defense of his decade in office, saying he had turned around a country "that was virtually collapsing" and plagued by "generalized terrorism." "My government defended the human rights of 25 million Peruvians, without a single exception," he said. "If there were horrible things done, it was not on my order and I condemn them."