Associated Press
Thursday; Page A16

LIMA, Peru, Sept. 5 -- Peru's attorney general filed homicide charges against former president Alberto Fujimori today, linking him to two massacres by death
squads in the early 1990s.

Prosecutors allege that Fujimori "co-authored" the killings and "knew in detail the operations" of a death squad known as the Colina group, the attorney general's
office said in a statement.

The Colina group is accused of shooting 15 people in 1991 in a Lima tenement. Some of the group's members have already been convicted of kidnapping and killing
nine students and a professor in 1992.

Prosecutors are also accusing Fujimori of the murder of a former intelligence agent, Mariela Barreto, in 1997, the statement said.

Congress opened the way for the charges on Aug. 27 by lifting the constitutional immunity of Fujimori, who has been in exile in his parents' native Japan since his
10-year rule collapsed in November.

Peruvian officials said the homicide and forced disappearance charges constituted crimes against humanity. They hope the charges will help persuade Japan to either
extradite Fujimori to Peru, try him in Japanese courts or send him to an international tribunal.

[On Thursday, Japan's Foreign Ministry said that Tokyo would continue to oppose the extradition of Fujimori, despite the new charges.]

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