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LIMA: Peruvian former president Alberto Fujimori, on trial over murder charges, apologised on Friday for any abuses committed during his during his 1990-2000 regime – but accepted no responsibility for them.
"I do apologise, now that we are in this process, to all of those victims ... those victimised by the forces of order as well as those by the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement," he said, referring to two violent leftist rebel groups crushed during his presidency.
He added that learning about massacres "hurt me deeply, I have personally seen who knows how many".
Fujimori faces charges that he knew of or gave orders to an army death squad known as the Colina Group that killed 25 people in two massacres, in 1991 and 1992.
Fujimori's daughter Keiko, a leading member of Congress who was in the courtroom, clarified her father's statements. By apologising, the ex-president laments the abuses, but "that does not mean that he assumes responsibility".
"It is a humane gesture," said Keiko Fujimori.
Relatives of Colina Grou victims gathered in the court room rejected the apology.
"There is no way that we can accept that hypocritical gesture from the ex-president," said Gisela Ortiz, spokeswoman for the relatives.
Ortiz noted that Fujimori may have apologised but did not ask for forgiveness.
"Fujimori had 15 years to ask for forgiveness, but he did not do it," she said. "On the contrary, he rewarded the authors of these massacres by issuing a pardon."
In 1995, Fujimori signed a blanket amnesty law for crimes that may have been committed by the military and police in the war against Peru's insurgency, and set the members of the Colina Group – jailed earlier after mounting public pressure – free.
- AFP/so
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