LIMA, Peru -- Alberto Fujimori, whose decade-long presidency began with triumphs righting Peru’s economy and defeating a brutal insurgency only to end in a disgrace of autocratic excess that later sent him to prison, has died. He was 86.

His passing on Wednesday in Lima, the capital city, was announced by his daughter Keiko Fujimori on X.

He had been granted a pardon in December from his convictions for corruption and responsibility for the deaths of 25 individuals. His daughter revealed in July that he was planning to run for the presidency of Peru for the fourth time in 2026.

Fujimori, who governed with an increasingly authoritarian approach from 1990-2000, was pardoned in December from his convictions for corruption and accountability for the murder of 25 people. His daughter revealed in July that he was planning to run for Peru’s presidency for the fourth time in 2026.

The former university president and mathematics professor was an unknown figure when he rose to prominence and won Peru’s 1990 election over writer Mario Vargas Llosa . Throughout his tumultuous political journey, he consistently made bold, risky decisions that alternately earned him praise and condemnation.

He inherited a nation grappling with soaring inflation and guerrilla warfare, revitalizing the economy through daring measures including widespread privatization of state-owned industries. Defeating the fanatical Shining Path rebels took a longer period but also garnered him widespread support.

His presidency, however, collapsed just as dramatically.

After briefly dissolving Congress and controversially assuming a third term, he fled the country in disgrace in 2000 when leaked recordings revealed his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos , engaging in bribery of lawmakers. The president escaped to Japan, the homeland of his parents, and famously communicated his resignation via fax.

He stunned both supporters and opponents five years later when he unexpectedly arrived in neighboring Chile, where he was apprehended and subsequently extradited to Peru. He had aspired to run for Peru’s presidency in 2006, but instead faced legal proceedings on charges of abuse of power.

The high-stakes political gambler would suffer a resounding defeat. He became the first former president in the world to be tried and convicted in his own country for human rights violations. While he was not found to have personally authorized the 25 death-squad killings for which he was convicted, he was held accountable because the crimes were committed on behalf of his government.

His 25-year sentence did not deter Fujimori from seeking political redemption. He strategized his return from a prison built within a police academy on the outskirts of Lima, the capital.

His daughter, a congresswoman named Keiko , attempted to reestablish the family's political dominance in 2011 by running for president. However, she narrowly lost in a runoff election. She ran again in 2016 and 2021, losing by a slim margin of 44,000 votes after a campaign centered on her pledge to free her father.

Fujimori told The Associated Press in 2000, seven months before his downfall, that he viewed his political opponents as chess pieces to be manipulated with a detached, calculated approach.

“In Latin America, I'm a unique case,” he remarked. “I've had a distinct upbringing in an Eastern cultural environment that emphasizes discipline and perseverance.”

Fujimori's presidency was, in fact, a bold display of outright authoritarian rule, known locally as “caudillismo,” in a region that was making unsteady progress towards democracy after years of dictatorships.

He is survived by his four children. His eldest, Keiko, became first lady in 1996 when his father divorced his mother, Susana Higuchi, in a bitter dispute where she accused Fujimori of having her tortured. The youngest child, Kenji, was elected to Congress.

Fujimori was born on July 28, 1938, Peruvian Independence Day, and his immigrant parents worked in cotton fields until they could establish a tailor shop in downtown Lima.

He obtained a degree in agricultural engineering in 1956, and then pursued studies in France and the United States, where he earned a graduate degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in 1972.

In 1984 he became the head of the Agricultural University in Lima, and six years later, he ran for president without prior political experience, presenting himself as a clean alternative to Peru's corrupt and discredited political establishment.

He capitalized on the Peruvian stereotype of the honest, hardworking Asian, and ignited hope in an economically struggling nation by claiming he would attract Japanese aid and technology.

His popularity surged from 6 percent in the polls a month before the 1990 election, placing him second out of nine candidates in the voting. He ultimately defeated Vargas Llosa in a runoff election.

He later attributed his victory to the same frustrations that fueled the Shining Path.

“My government is the outcome of rejection, of weariness with Peru due to the frivolity, corruption, and ineffectiveness of the traditional political class and the bureaucracy,” he stated.

Fujimori's initial tough stance and decisive actions initially earned him praise, as car bombs continued to devastate the capital and inflation reached astronomical levels, nearing 8,000 percent.

He implemented the same economic shock therapy that Vargas Llosa had championed, despite his own opposition during the campaign.

Fujimori drastically reduced public spending and attracted unprecedented foreign investment by privatizing state-owned enterprises.

Affectionately known as “El chino,” due to his Asian heritage, Fujimori frequently dressed in traditional peasant attire to visit indigenous communities in the jungle and farmers in the highlands, while bringing electricity and clean water to impoverished villages. This approach set him apart from the elite, white politicians who typically lacked his common touch.

Fujimori also granted Peru's security forces unfettered authority to combat the Shining Path.

In September 1992, police apprehended rebel leader Abimael Guzmán . Fujimori, rightfully or not, claimed responsibility for the capture.

Perhaps his most notable action occurred in April 1997 when he dispatched U.S.-trained commandos to the Japanese ambassador’s residence where 14 leftist Tupac Amaru rebels had held 72 hostages for months.

Only one hostage lost their life. All the captors, however, were killed, allegedly on Montesinos’ orders.

Taking office just years after many countries in the region had overthrown dictatorships, the former university professor ultimately represented a step backwards. He developed a growing desire for power and resorted to increasingly undemocratic methods to gain more of it.

In April 1992, he dissolved Congress and the judiciary, accusing them of hindering his efforts to defeat the Shining Path and promote economic reforms.

International pressure compelled him to call elections for an assembly to replace Congress. The new legislative body, dominated by his supporters, amended Peru’s constitution to allow the president to serve two consecutive five-year terms. Fujimori was re-elected in 1995, after a brief border conflict with Ecuador, in a landslide victory.

Human rights defenders both domestically and internationally condemned him for enacting a general amnesty law pardoning human rights violations committed by security forces during Peru’s “anti-subversive” campaign between 1980 and 1995.

The conflict resulted in nearly 70,000 fatalities, as determined by a truth commission, with the military responsible for more than a third of the deaths. Journalists and businesspeople were abducted, students vanished, and at least 2,000 women in rural highlands were forcibly sterilized.

In 1996, Fujimori’s majority bloc in Congress paved the way for a third term when it approved a law that declared his initial five years as president didn’t count because the new constitution wasn’t yet in effect when he was elected.

A year later, Fujimori's Congress dismissed three Constitutional Tribunal judges who attempted to overturn the legislation, and his critics accused him of establishing a democratically elected dictatorship.

By that time, a steady stream of revelations exposed the massive extent of corruption surrounding Fujimori's administration. Around 1,500 individuals connected to his government faced prosecution for corruption and other offenses, including eight former Cabinet members, three former military leaders, an attorney general, and a former head of the Supreme Court.

The charges against Fujimori resulted in extensive legal proceedings. In December, Peru's Constitutional Court upheld a humanitarian pardon given to Fujimori on Christmas Eve in 2017 by then-President Pablo Kuczynski. Wearing a face mask and receiving supplementary oxygen, Fujimori left the prison and entered a sports utility vehicle driven by his daughter-in-law.

His last public appearance was on Sept. 4, when he left a private hospital in a wheelchair. He told the press that he had undergone a CT scan and when asked if his presidential candidacy was still in motion, he smiled and said “We’ll see, we’ll see.”

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Frank Bajak, the primary author of this obituary, retired from The Associated Press in 2024. Associated Press journalist Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed.