Versión Español
EspañolOn Wednesday, Matilde Pinchi Pinchi, the woman whose revelations were key in uncovering corruption during Alberto Fujimori’s administration, accused the former president of illegally paying journalists US$5,000 for every news headline that favored his reelection in 2000.
She reasserted that the so-called “chicha press” were financed with state resources from 1999 until Vladimiro Montesinos, the National Intelligence Service (SIN), fled to Panama the next year. Furthermore, Pinchi Pinchi explained that Montesinos and Fujimori always discussed the paid headlines through encrypted telephone communications.
Investigative journalist Ángel Páez also participated in the hearing, and recalled that Fujimori’s government tried to intimidate him through the “chicha press,” accusing him of being a “traitor.” Páez also said that he was offered between US$50,000 and US$150,000 in exchange for not spreading information about a questionable arms sale to the Peruvian Armed Forces.
Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for having command responsibility in 25 murders and two kidnappings, and has been serving his sentence since 2007.
Source: Diario de las Américas.
