By Xinhua
Lima : Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, on trial over army massacres during his term, said he had only set general policy guidelines but never made anti-terrorist tactics against his opponents.
Fujimori said during his 1990-2000 presidency, he had never made plans for military operations since the president only sets general policies but does not command such operations.
“The president always fixes the general approach and guidelines. He does not set out strategy or say how it should be carried out; this is the military sphere,” Fujimori said during a courtroom testimony Wednesday.
The 69-year-old ex-president was charged with ordering a massacre in the Lima suburb of Barrios Altos in 1991 and with the 1992 kidnapping of a group of students and teachers at Lima’s La Cantuta University, none of whom were ever seen again.
He was also charged with the kidnapping of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel Dyer.
However, the ex-president has been insisting that his official role as the supreme chief of the armed forces is “symbolic rather than operative”.
He claimed neither his ministers, nor armed forces chiefs, nor even intelligence chiefs had given him details of any massacres.
Fujimori also denied any part in the mistreatment of Alan Garcia, Peru’s president from 1985 to 1990. Garcia was re-elected last year.
Meanwhile, a recent research showed that 56.2 percent of Lima residents believed Fujimori is directly responsible for both the massacres, while 29.5 percent said he is innocent.
Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 to escape a corruption scandal involving alleged bribes to legislators, and stayed there for five years. In 2005, he flew to Chile, where he might have been preparing for a return to politics in Peru.
He was arrested in November 2005 in Chile and extradited to Peru in September this year.