FACTBOX - The legacy of Peru's Alberto Fujimori

Wed Sep 30, 2009 1:48pm EDT

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Former President Alberto Fujimori, 71, was convicted by Peru's Supreme Court on Wednesday of wiretapping opponents and paying bribes to lawmakers and publishers during his rule from 1990 to 2000.

Here are some facts about his trial and political legacy:

A LONG-SHOT CANDIDATE

* In 1990, Fujimori, a little-known chancellor of an agricultural university, drove a tractor to his presidential campaign rallies. He promised to confront a severe economic crisis and the Maoist insurgency known as the Shining Path.

* A Japanese-Peruvian, he touted himself as an alternative to the white Peruvian elite, and gained overwhelming support from the country's large indigenous and mixed race populations. He won his first term by defeating renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa.

POWER GRAB, SHINING PATH DEFEAT

* In April 1992, Fujimori shut down the opposition-dominated Congress and suspended the constitution to enact free-market economic reforms and anti-terrorism measures. Most Peruvians applauded the move despite international concerns.

* Five months later, Fujimori won widespread praise when government forces captured Abimael Guzman, the supreme leader of the violent Shining Path, and drastically reduced attacks by the group.

HUMAN RIGHTS CHARGES

* In November 1991, government security agents shot dead 15 people, among them an 8-year-old boy, at a barbecue. It became known as the Barrios Altos massacre. Fujimori was convicted of a charge related to the Barrios Altos massacre.

* In July 1992, nine students and a professor disappeared from the La Cantuta university on the outskirts of Lima and are executed. Peru's truth commission, which investigated atrocities of the civil war that claimed 70,000 lives, later said the 10 were murdered by government agents. Fujimori was found guilty of directing the massacre.

* In 1997, Fujimori sent more than 100 commandos into the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima to end a four-month crisis touched off by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, which took more than 500 people hostage. The raid kills 14 insurgents. Two commandos and one of the remaining 72 hostages die. Television footage showed Fujimori calmly stepping over the corpses of the insurgents after the raid.

RESIGNATION, EXTRADITION, TRIALS

* In 2000, Fujimori resigned as president, initially by fax from Japan, as a corruption scandal enveloped his government. Years later, he flies to Chile, apparently hoping to stage a political comeback.

* Fujimori was extradited from Chile in 2007 to face a raft of charges. It was a rare case of a former head of state being put on trial in his own country on human rights crimes and could set a precedent for similar trials in Peru and elsewhere .

* Fujimori was sentenced to six years in prison in December 2007 for ordering aides to steal documents from the wife of his former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.

* In April 2009, Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering a death squad to carry out two massacres that killed two dozen people in the early 1990s, when his government was battling insurgents.

* In July 2009, he was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for giving a $15 million bribe to his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.

* In September 2009, Fujimori was sentenced to six years in prison for wiretapping and paying bribes to lawmakers and publishers. Peruvian law says he will serve the sentences concurrently. (Compiled by Dana Ford and Terry Wade)