Lima has renewed its calls for Japan to extradite deposed President Alberto Fujimori so he can stand trial in Peru on charges that include murder, bribery and embezzlement, according to media reports Thursday out of Peru.
President Alejandro Toledo made the request Wednesday when he met new Japanese Ambassador Yubun Narita, who was presenting his credentials.
Toledo reportedly told Narita one of Peru's priorities is for Fujimori to return to stand trial.
The Mainichi Shimbun reported Tuesday that Fujimori, who fled to Japan and has since remained, has expressed his strong intent to run in the 2006 presidential election after returning to Peru.
Japan has rejected repeated requests from the Peruvian government to hand over the fugitive Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants from Kumamoto Prefecture, on the grounds that the former president has Japanese citizenship and thus can stay in the country indefinitely.
Peru and Japan have no extradition treaty.
Fujimori arrived in Japan on Nov. 17, 2000, while in office, on an unscheduled visit after briefly attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in Brunei.
Fujimori has been charged with ordering his former top aide and alleged spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos to pay bribes from public coffers to current and former lawmakers to secure a congressional majority, as well as abandoning his office and dereliction of duty.
He faces two other charges of murder and kidnapping in connection with his alleged sanctioning of two massacres by a paramilitary death squad in the early 1990s, as well as diverting $15 million in defense funds to Montesinos in September 2000 for his "work" as a close aide.