LIMA, Peru, Sept 14, (AP): Peru’s government declared three days of national mourning over the death of former President Alberto Fujimori and granted him a state funeral despite his convictions for human rights abuses and corruption. Fujimori, who governed the South American country with an increasingly authoritarian hand between 1990 and 2000, died of cancer Wednesday at a home in the capital, Lima.

He was freed from prison in December following a court ruling that granted him a pardon on humanitarian grounds. His coffin was taken Thursday to the Ministry of Culture to lie in state until Saturday. Riot police and about 50 supporters surrounded the hearse as it moved through the streets of Lima. Fujimori's daughter Keiko and son Kenji followed the flag-draped coffin as pallbearers carried it into the ministry.

The siblings were met by President Dina Boluarte. The government’s decision to honor Fujimori, including an order to fly all flags on public buildings at half-staff, was published Thursday in the federal register. Fujimori, a former university president and mathematics professor, emerged from obscurity to win Peru’s 1990 elections over writer Mario Vargas Llosa.

He took over a country ravaged by runaway inflation and guerrilla violence, mending the economy with bold actions, including mass privatizations of state industries. He also defeated fanatical Shining Path communist rebels, winning broad-based support. But his political career ended in disgrace. After briefly shutting down Congress and elbowing himself into a controversial third term, he fled the country in 2000, when leaked videotapes showed his spy chief bribing lawmakers.

He went to Japan, the land of his parents, and famously faxed in his resignation. He was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for being the mastermind behind the slayings of 25 Peruvians while the government fought the Shining Path. The accusations against him led to years of legal wrangling, and he remained a polarizing figure throughout.