Peru's former president Alberto Fujimori was rushed from prison to a local hospital by ambulance late Saturday after suffering a severe drop in blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythm that put him at risk of dying, Fujimori's doctor said.

Cardiologists recommended that he be removed from prison immediately, physician and politician Alejandro Aguinaga said. "It looks complicated," he told journalists gathered outside the hospital.

Fujimori, 79, is serving a 25-year sentence for graft and human rights crimes. He is a deeply divisive figure in Peru. While many consider him a corrupt dictator, others credit him with ending an economic crisis and bloody leftist insurgency during his 1990-2000 term.