Alberto Fujimori, a former Peruvian president who rescued the nation from economic crisis and terrorism but cracked down on human rights, died on Wednesday at 86.

Mr Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko, announced her father’s death on X, and said he died from cancer on Wednesday.

Mr Fujimori, who ruled Peru with iron fist in the 1990s, was embroiled in a corruption scandal that made him flee to Japan in 2000. He later tendered his resignation by fax from Japan, his parents’ native land, and spent many years there afterwards.

But in 2006, he travelled to Chile, where he was extradited to Peru to defend the criminal charges against him.

In 2009, he was convicted of human rights violations and was handed a 25-year jail term.

Relief came for Mr Fujimori in 2017 when then-Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski gave him a pardon.

The relief was, however, short-lived as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights criticised the move, asserting the pardon rubbished the efforts of the Peruvian judiciary to put a high-profile politician behind bars and was also a “slap in the face for the victims and witnesses whose tireless commitment brought him to justice.”

The pardon was reversed in 2018 by the Peruvian Supreme Court, and the president who issued it was forced to resign over a corruption scandal.

The Supreme Court again restored Mr Fujimori’s pardon in March 2022, news that the majority of Peruvians welcomed with delight. Mr Fujimori was still largely popular among his people who praised him highly for taming hyperinflation and crushing terrorist groups.

But, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights resisted the pardon and delayed his release until December 2023.