A Peruvian judge has issued an international arrest warrant for former President Alberto Fujimori on charges of human rights violations. Mr. Fujimori has been living in Japan since being forced out of office last November. Peruvian Judge Jose Lecaros says the former president is wanted on charges of qualified homicide and forced disappearances stemming from two massacres in the early 1990s during Mr. Fujimori's first term in office.
The massacres, in which more than 20 people were killed, were carried out by security forces at a time when the Fujimori government was involved in fighting left-wing terrorism.
Judge Lecaros told a Lima radio station Thursday the arrest orders against Mr. Fujimori will open up the process for extraditing the ex-president from Japan. However, the Japanese government has rebuffed previous Peruvian requests to turn over Mr. Fujimori.
The former Peruvian leader, whose parents were Japanese, has dual nationality. He has been living in Tokyo since last November, when he was forced to resign in the wake of a corruption scandal after ten years in power.