Japan said yesterday that Peru's issuing of an international arrest warrant for ex-president Alberto Fujimori on charges of abandoning office will not change Tokyo's stance against handing him over to Lima.
A day earlier, Peruvian judge Jose Luis Lecaros declared Mr Fujimori an absent criminal and ordered his arrest. The disgraced president fled to Japan last November to escape a corruption scandal and was sacked as president shortly after.
But an official at Japan's Foreign Ministry said the arrest orders made no difference. Japan has repeatedly said it could not extradite Mr Fujimori because he is protected by his dual Japanese and Peruvian nationality.
Peruvian investigators say they suspect Mr Fujimori of misuse of state funds and involvement in corruption linked to his jailed former spy chief and right hand man, Vladimir Montesinos, but he currently faces only the dereliction of duty charges.
The charges are widely acknowledged to be minor, since they carry only a two-year sentence and lesser prison terms can be waived in Peru.
New Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo has pledged to bring Mr Fujimori home to face the courts, and Judge Lecaros said judicial authorities would be pushing for his extradition.
Peru's attorney general, Ms Nelly Calderon, has charged the 63-year-old ex-president with responsibility for a "horrendous" 1991 massacre by an army death squad.
His eldest daughter, Ms Keiko Sofia Fujimori, arrived in Tokyo later in the day to see her father.