The family of Peru’s former strongman Alberto Fujimori is trying to get him a presidential pardon because of his allegedly deteriorating health.

Fujimori is serving a 25-year prison sentence for human rights abuse during his decade in the president’s office from 1990 to 2000.  A court in 2009 found him guilty of ordering the murders of 25 people by a government-backed death squad during Peru's internal conflict.

That’s just the stuff for which he was convicted.  There were other serious complaints against him, such as the “Voluntary Surgical Contraception” program, and the first word is tragically ironic.  After initial support from international agencies, it became clear the Fujimori government was in reality using force and unfair coercion to sterilize hundreds of thousands of indigenous women.

His family and his doctor are asking President Ollanta Humala to pardon Fujimori on health grounds, after he was hospitalized over the weekend with with acute gastritis.

“Doctors have concluded that my father has erosive gastroduodenitis plus acute lesions of the gastric mucous with bleeding in some places.  They're keeping my dad under observation for the next few hours.  He's receiving medication to control the pain,” said his daughter, former presidential candidate and ex-lawmaker Keiko Fujimori.

Critics, especially families of Fujimori’s victims, say Peruvian jails are crowded with prisoners in worse health and for lesser crimes than those for which Alberto Fujimori was convicted, and he should not get special treatment.