Daughter joins Fujimori in Japan as pressure grows

Daughter joins Fujimori in Japan as pressure grows

TOKYO (AFP): Japan resisted growing pressure from Peru to
extradite former president Alberto Fujimori on Friday while his
eldest daughter flew in from Lima to join him.

A judge in Lima on Thursday issued an international arrest
warrant for Fujimori, currently in self-imposed exile in Japan,
for failing to appear in a Peruvian court to respond to criminal
charges of abandoning his post.

But a Japanese foreign ministry official reaffirmed Tokyo's
position that it recognized Fujimori as a Japanese citizen and
that it did not extradite its nationals nor did it have an
extradition pact with Peru.

"The Japanese government's position is that it doesn't comply
with any request for extradition," she said. "As for the reported
international arrest warrant, the matter should be primarily
dealt with by the National Police Agency (NPA)."

The ex-president's 26-year-old daughter Keiko Sophia Fujimori
landed here at 4:21 pm (0721 GMT) on a Japan Airline flight from
Los Angeles where she made a stopover after leaving Lima last
Tuesday.

She arrived alone and was mobbed by about 100 reporters and
300 onlookers.

In a brief statement, she said: "I'm happy to be here and I
came to visit my father after eight months. I'm going to stay a
few weeks. I had a long flight, but all I want to do right now is
go to see my father."

When asked if she would seek asylum here, she replied: "That's
not true."

She did not comment when asked about the warrant issued for
her father, and said instead, "Please, right now I want to see my
father."

The ex-president's daughter was escorted away without further
comment through the gate to a limousine by about 10 airport
security officers. Her immediate destination for the expected
reunion with her father was not known.

The senior Fujimori, 62, has been living in Japan, the land of
his ancestors, since November, when he resigned the presidency
via fax from Tokyo.

Peru's Congress rejected his resignation and sacked him for
"dereliction of duty."

Fujimori was declared an "absent defendant" in the arrest
warrant signed by judge Jose Luis Lecaros which called for his
arrest and return to Peru to answer the charge of abandoning his
post.

An International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO) spokesman
in Lima said Japan was one of the group's 178 members but it
could only detain Fujimori provisionally in Japan without an
extradition order.

It was up to Japan's foreign ministry to determine for how
long that would be, he said.

But an NPA spokesman here said, "Generally speaking, we are
not allowed by domestic law to take a suspect into custody only
on the basis of a warrant from the ICPO."

On Wednesday, Fernando Olivera, the Peruvian justice minister
in the new administration of Alejandro Toledo, vowed Lima would
launch an international campaign if need be for the extradition
and trial of Fujimori.

He urged Tokyo to cease to be "the empire of impunity" with
regard to its perceived harboring of Fujimori and his brother-in-
law and the former Peruvian ambassador to Japan, Victor Aritomi
Shinto.

The international arrest warrant is solely based on the charge
of abandoning office, for which Fujimori could face up to two
years in prison under Peruvian law.

However, as Japan does not recognize such charges as a
criminal offense, extradition efforts will be much more
complicated.

Keiko Fujimori became Peru's first lady in 1994 after
Fujimori's troubles with his wife, Susana Higuchi, got
increasingly political.

He divorced Higuchi -- now member of congress -- two years
later after she accused him of tolerating corruption.
Keiko is the only one of Fujimori's four children who has
remained in Peru.

His 88-year-old mother, Mutsue, who immigrated to Peru with
her husband from southwestern Japan before Alberto Fujimori was
born, has returned to Japan for medical treatment, Japan's Kyodo
news agency said earlier.