LIMA, Peru - An investigation commissioned by the Peruvian government three years ago has not located any illicit bank accounts in the name of ex-President Alberto Fujimori, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
But La Primera, which has a record of publishing exclusives, said the probe by U.S.-based risk consulting company Kroll did not rule out the possibility that Fujimori stashed assets in an institution specialized in handling illicit funds.
"No bank accounts in (Fujimori's) name, either in Japan or in other countries included in the investigation have been found," La Primera quoted the report, which was finished in 2003, as saying.
The report said it did not rule out that "there may exist assets of Fujimori, kept by him, using a large company or a bank with expertise in managing ill-gotten funds as a facade."
Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 at the height of a government corruption scandal and has remained there, shielded by his dual citizenship, from charges in Peru for death squad killings and corruption crimes which he denies.
Kroll declined to comment on the newspaper article. "Our reports are confidential," a spokeswoman said.
Neither officials at Peru's Justice Ministry, which commissioned the report in 2002, nor Peru's anti-corruption state attorney were immediately available for comment.
Fujimori, Peru's hard-line president from 1990-2000, has vowed to return and win presidential elections in April, despite the fact that he risks arrest if he leaves Japan and was banned from public office in 2000 for 10 years.
Feeds