Mr Fujimori, Peru sentences coup backers ...
Fujimori faces first questioning ...
Fujimori trial date set in Peru ...
Chile court extradites Fujimori ...
Yale to return Peruvian artefacts ... who was in office from 1990 to 2000, faces charges of murder and kidnapping, which he denies.

He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of authorising two death squad massacres in the early 1990s in which 25 people were killed.

Since he was extradited back to Peru from Chile in September, polls suggest sympathy for him has grown.

Death squad killings

Mr Fujimori's first trial relates to two massacres carried out by a death squad known as La Colina, in which a total of 25 people died.

In 1991, La Colina raided a barbecue in a poor suburb of Lima and killed 15 people. The following year they kidnapped nine students and a professor from the grounds of their university and then executed them.

It is alleged the death squad was under the direct command of the Peruvian president.

Mr Fujimori is also charged with the illegal detention and interrogation of a prominent journalist and businessman.

He denies all the charges.

Some Peruvians feel it is unfair that Mr Fujimori is being treated as a criminal when he transformed the economy and did what it took - as they see it - to liberate the country from the terror of the Maoist guerrilla group, the Shining Path.

Others say he used the state of emergency to justify his repressive and autocratic rule, and stole millions of dollars from the country.

Now all those conflicting opinions will be played out in court and aired on national television.

And the chances are if Mr Fujimori goes down he will take others with him.

(BBC)

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