Peru's Keiko Fujimori would pardon her dad

LIMA, March 19 (UPI) -- The daughter of imprisoned former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori said she would pardon her father if she is elected president.

Keiko Fujimori, a Peruvian congresswoman and former first lady -- given the title at age 19 by her father after he stripped her mother of it following a divorce -- told the Los Angeles Times the pardon wouldn't be a case of family loyalty trumping justice.

"Thousands of other people consider Alberto Fujimori innocent" of alleged human rights abuses that include the deaths of at least 25 people in the 1990s, the 33-year-old political heir to her father's legacy told the newspaper.

"Now that we are so close to a verdict, I don't think he will need a pardon. I think he will be absolved," she said of her 70-year-old father.

Prosecutors have no proof against him, she said.

The younger Fujimori said her own popularity in the polls -- she's a leading potential contender for president in 2011 -- reflects more than just "how people support me, my work and my style of being close to the people," she told the newspaper.

"It also reflects strong support for my father," she said. Just before her father returned to Peru in 2005 from self-imposed exile in Japan, "one poll said 66 percent of Peruvians consider him the greatest president in our history," she said.

The Boston University business school graduate, married to former New Jersey wrestler Mark Villanella who later worked as an IBM Corp. consultant, didn't say when she would announce her candidacy.

She was elected to the Peruvian Congress in 2006 by more votes than any other legislator.