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But the move backfired as victims’ groups organized protests, and the United Nations condemned the release. By March, Ms. Fujimori led another push to oust Mr. Kuczynski amid a corruption scandal, and the president resigned.
The former dictator, meanwhile, had remained a free man.
Francisco Soberón, the director of the Association for Human Rights, a Peruvian group, applauded the court’s decision to put Mr. Fujimori back in jail.
“It’s a great achievement for the families after 26 years of struggling for justice that was cut short by that terrible pardon,” he said. “It is an encouragement for justice in Peru,” he said, describing the system as in a state of crisis because of widespread corruption.
Victims groups had previously sought a reversal of the pardon, bringing a case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights this year. The court, in turn, sent the case back to Peru’s government, asking it to examine whether the pardon was legal.
Aníbal Quiroga, a law professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, said that even though the president can pardon criminals, the Supreme Court had a strong case for overruling Mr. Fujimori’s pardon. Peru may have run afoul of international treaties by freeing someone of Mr. Fujimori’s stature who was convicted of human rights violations, he said.
While Peru has been known for a growing economy and popular tourist sites, Mr. Fujimori’s release was a reminder of a more bitter era that many in the country would rather forget.
The son of Japanese immigrants, Mr. Fujimori was elected in 1990 as a political outsider at a time when the Shining Path and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, left-wing rebel groups, challenged the military and engaged in terror campaigns that left around 70,000 people dead. Hyperinflation was racking Peru’s economy.