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With a third of Peruvians still supporting Alberto Fujimori, his daughter and congresswoman Keiko Fujimori rolls out defense of her father's rule and counterinsurgency campaign as she mulls run for presidency in 2011.
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori's conviction on human rights crimes will backfire, his daughter Keiko said on Wednesday (April 08) as she eyes a tough race for the presidency in 2011 against leftist Ollanta Humala.
The daughter of Peru's former president Alberto Fujimori met with international press one day after her father was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for human rights violations.
The verdict marked the first time a democratically elected Latin American president was found guilty in his own country of human rights crimes.
A three-judge panel convicted him of ordering a military death squad to carry out two massacres that killed 25 people during his 1990-2000 rule, when he was battling guerrillas. They are known as the "La Cantuta" and "Barrios Altos" massacres. Nearly 70,000 people died in two decades of conflict in the Andean country.
His 33-year old daughter, a current member of the Peruvian Congress, lambasted the verdict.

"A person 70 years old who receives 70 years of punishment - that´s practically a life sentence, which is what Abimael Guzman received.
Without a doubt, Alberto Fujimori is being condemned as if he were the leader of a terrorist group, which for us is completely unacceptable," Keiko Fujimori said, referring to the former leader of the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla group that was one of two groups that did battle with Lima over the course of two decades.
Guzman was incarcerated in 1992 after a nation-wide manhunt of the philosophy professor turned leftist militant leader.
She went on to characterize Tuesday's finding as a politically motivated gambit.

"Yesterday, the story of a sentencing came to an end after several years of having read headlines and opinion pieces condemning Alberto Fujimori.
Yesterday's sentence confirms the hatred of some pro- terrorist groups, the political enemies of Fujimorism," she said of her father's political movement that still is supported by roughly a a third of Peruvians.
Once lauded as a hero, Fujimori, 70, could spend the rest of his life in prison.
His daughter defended his rule that defenders say restored peace to the Andean nation and credit years of growth to his enacting of free market economic reforms.

"The work we have done in Peru wasn't only nationwide and to get private investors. We did a lot of social work, in education, in health, in programs for food for children, so the recognition of the people is there.
They know that we are committed to work for their lives," she said.
Fujimori, known as the "Chino" despite his Japanese heritage, can appeal the ruling, but the verdict is likely to have far-reaching political implications for Peru.
His daughter addressed the current day political environment in Peru.

"The poorest classes are the ones that support the Fujimori movement, and in the last election they also supported Mr. Ollanta Humala.
This is something that can't be avoided. That is something that cannot be avoided. But we have a large backing, and other groups support Mr. Humala. I respect his candidacy, even though I don´t respect his ideals, objectives or his government plan," she said, referring to the leftist nationalist former general who spooked financial markets when he nearly won the Peruvian presidency in 2006.
Humala has expressed running for election again in 2011, after losing to current President Alan Garcia.
Garcia has also been haunted by accusations that he violated rights during his first term in the 1980s.
The current president, Alan Garcia, is barred by the country's constitution from running for re-election in 2011.
He has told foreign investors he will do his best to derail Humala's candidacy by persuading Peruvians to reject leftist models that have regained popularity in Latin America.
Herself a probable candidate for president in 2011, Keiko Fujimori is leading in opinion polls to follow Garcia.

"Over the course of many years, we´ve been the object of terrible accusations, unfair persecutions, and when they think that something like this they are going to hurt us - I don´t think so. On the contrary, we get stronger. Fujimorism comes together, and succeeds in securing for us more support and sympathy of the people," she said.
Both Fujimori and Humala, who is an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, would compete for votes from the poor in a country with a poverty rate of nearly 40 percent.
She said if she were head of state she would support her father with a pardon, if need be and that she would follow the programs of her authoritarian father.
The elder Fujimori styled himself as a right-wing populist, opening Peru to foreign investment and rolling out education, health and food programs that made him wildly popular among the poor.
After leaving office in the wake of a spy scandal in 2000, Alberto Fujimori fled to exile in Japan, the country where his parents were born. He was later arrested in Chile and extradited to Peru to stand trial.