The End Of Impunity.(World Affairs)(Alberto Fujimori's corruption case)

Byline: Joseph Contreras; With Jimmy Langman in Santiago and Lucy Conger in Lima

The case of Alberto Fujimori suggests that other rogue heads of state will face consequences for their actions.

After nearly two years under house arrest in Santiago, Chile, former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori settled into his new quarters last week -- a comfortable if spartan suite of rooms at a police base in the eastern suburbs of Lima -- where he will await his upcoming trials on charges of corruption and human-rights abuses. If convicted, Fujimori, 69, is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. But Chile's decision to send Fujimori home has already sent ripples throughout the world of international criminal justice.

International-law experts and human-rights activists hailed the ruling of the Chilean justices as an important step toward making ex-dictators more accountable for their alleged atrocities. They say the precedent set by the five judges of the Chilean Supreme Court will make it easier for jurists in other countries to OK the extradition of ex-dictators facing criminal charges in their native lands. In fact, the Fujimori case is only the latest in a series of judicial proceedings involving tyrants and warlords that have made it increasingly difficult for them to elude prosecution.

The first breakthrough came in the 1990s when the United Nations Security Council set up special international courts to prosecute Yugoslav and Rwandan officials accused of gross human-rights abuses. Slobodan Milosevic died before The Hague tribunal could render its judgment. But a tribunal established in Tanzania sentenced former Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda to life imprisonment in 1998 for his role in the genocide carried out against that nation's ethnic Tutsi population -- the first time a former chief of state had been held responsible for human-rights violations committed during his tenure.

The wiggle room narrowed further a ...