Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto (26 July 1938 – 11 September 2024) was a Peruvian politician, professor, and engineer who served as the 54th president of Peru from 1990 to 2000. Born in Lima, Fujimori was the country's first president of Japanese descent, and was an agronomist and university rector prior to entering politics. Fujimori emerged as a politician during the midst of the internal conflict in Peru, the Peruvian Lost Decade, and the ensuing violence caused by the far-left guerilla group Shining Path. In office as president, Fujimori implemented a series of military reforms and responded to Shining Path with repressive and lethal force, halting the group's actions. He became known for his neoliberal political and economic ideology of Fujimorism, which pushed a free market economy and social conservatism. His administration was also controversial for alleged abuses of human rights and authoritarian tendencies.

In 1992, during his first presidential term, Fujimori, with the support of the National Intelligence Service and the Peruvian Armed Forces, adopted Plan Verde and carried out a self-coup against the Peruvian legislature and judiciary. Fujimori dissolved the Peruvian Congress and Supreme Court, effectively making him a de facto dictator of Peru. The coup was criticized by Peruvian politicians, intellectuals and journalists, but was well received by the country's private business sector and a substantial part of the public. Following the coup d'état, Fujimori drafted a new constitution in 1993, which was approved in a referendum, and was elected as president for a second term in 1995 and controversially for a third term in 2000. Fujimori's time in office was marked by severe authoritarian measures, excessive use of propaganda, entrenched political corruption, multiple cases of extrajudicial killings, and human rights violations. Under the provisions of Plan Verde, Fujimori targeted members of Peru's indigenous community and subjected them to forced sterilizations.

In 2000, following his third term election, Fujimori faced mounting allegations of widespread corruption and crimes against humanity within his government. Subsequently, Fujimori fled to Japan, where he submitted his presidential resignation via fax. Peru's congress refused to accept his resignation, instead voting to remove him from office on the grounds that he was "permanently morally disabled". While he was in Japan, Peru issued multiple criminal charges against him, stemming from the corruption and human rights abuses that occurred during his government. Peru requested Fujimori's extradition from Japan, which was refused by the Japanese government due to Fujimori being a Japanese citizen, and Japanese laws stipulating against extraditing its citizens. In 2005, while Fujimori was visiting Santiago, Chile, he was arrested by the Carabineros de Chile at the request of Peru, and extradited to Lima to face charges in 2007. Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but was pardoned by president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in 2017, and was officially released in December 2023 following several years of legal proceedings regarding the legality of his pardon. He died nine months after his release in September 2024.

Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto was born on 26 July 1938 in the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru, to Japanese parents Naoichi Fujimori (né Minami) and Mutsue Inomoto. His parents were originally from Kumamoto Prefecture and immigrated to Peru in 1934. Fujimori's parents were Buddhists, but he was baptized and raised Catholic. Aside from Spanish, he also spoke Japanese, the primary language in his childhood home, in addition to English.

Fujimori obtained his early education at the Colegio Nuestra Señora de la Merced and La Rectora School. In 1956, he graduated from La Gran Unidad Escolar Alfonso Ugarte in Lima. Fujimori pursued his undergraduate studies at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina in 1957, graduating first in his class in 1961 with a degree in agricultural engineering. He briefly lectured in mathematics at the university before moving to France to study physics at the University of Strasbourg. In 1969, he earned a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee through a Ford Foundation scholarship.

In recognition of his academic achievements, the sciences faculty of the National Agrarian University offered Fujimori the deanship and in 1984 appointed him to the rectorship of the university, which he held until 1989. In 1987, Fujimori also became president of the National Assembly of University Rectors [es], a position that he held twice. He also hosted a TV show called Concertando from 1988 to 1989 on Peru's state-owned network, Canal 7.

In July 1997, the news magazine Caretas alleged that Fujimori was born in Japan, in his father's hometown of Kawachi, Kumamoto Prefecture. Because the Constitution of Peru requires the president to have been born in Peru, this would have made Fujimori ineligible to be president. The magazine, which had been sued for libel by Vladimiro Montesinos seven years earlier, reported that Fujimori's birth and baptismal certificates might have been altered. Caretas also alleged that Fujimori's mother declared having two children when she entered Peru; Fujimori was the second of four children. Caretas's contentions were hotly contested in the Peruvian media; the magazine Sí described the allegations as "pathetic" and "a dark page for [Peruvian] journalism". Latin American scholars Cynthia McClintock and Fabián Vallas note that the issue appeared to have died down among Peruvians after the Japanese government announced in 2000 that "Fujimori's parents had registered his birth in the Japanese Embassy in Lima". The Japanese government determined that he was also a Japanese citizen because of his parents' registration in the koseki.

During the first presidency of Alan García, the economy had entered a period of hyperinflation and the political system was in crisis due to the country's internal conflict, leaving Peru in "economic and political chaos". The armed forces grew frustrated with the inability of the García administration to handle the nation's crises and began to draft Plan Verde as a plan to overthrow his government. According to Rospigliosi, lawyer and friend of Fujimori, Vladimiro Montesinos was not initially involved with the Plan Verde, but his ability to resolve issues for the military resulted with the armed forces tasking Montesinos with implementing the plan with Fujimori, Both General Nicolás de Bari Hermoza [es] and Montesinos were responsible for the relationship between the armed forces and Fujimori. Mario Vargas Llosa, Fujimori's final opponent in the election, later reported that United States Ambassador to Peru, Anthony C. E. Quainton, personally told him that allegedly leaked documents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) purportedly being supportive of Fujimori's candidacy were authentic. Rendón writes that the United States supported Fujimori because of his relationship with Montesinos, who had previously been charged with spying on the Peruvian military for the CIA.