(Bloomberg) -- A Peruvian court ruled that former president Alberto Fujimori will remain incarcerated, challenging a decision from the country’s Constitutional Court that called for his release. 

Judge Fernando Vicente Fernandez Tapia, in charge of the First Court of Preparatory Investigation, ordered not to execute a prior decision to release the former president, imprisoned for death squad killings, El Comercio reported on Friday. 

Peru’s Constitutional Court challenged this week an international court over the potential release. The former president was pardoned in 2017, but was sent back to jail, where he has remained partly due to the intervention of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). 

The IACHR expressed “concern” about a ruling this week from the Constitutional Court that could result in the release of Fujimori. The organization recalled that a 2022 resolution “established the reasons why the State should refrain from granting a pardon ‘for humanitarian reasons’ in compliance with the Inter-American standards,” according to a Friday post on X, formerly Twitter. 

The Constitutional Court challenge would mean disregarding Peru’s commitments to the IACHR.

Fujimori, 85, was jailed in 2005 following extradition from Chile, before being sentenced in 2009. He was originally pardoned by former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, but a Peruvian court overturned the pardon and returned him to prison.

Read More: Peru’s Top Judges Defy International Court Over Jailed Fujimori

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