A Chilean Supreme Court judge has ruled that former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori should not be extradited to Peru to face human rights and corruption charges, a court spokesman said today.
The judge's ruling now passes to the Supreme Court which has the final say on whether Fujimori , who ruled Peru from 1990-2000, is sent to Lima.
In the meantime, the verdict is open to appeal by Peruvian state prosecutors.
Fujimori has been in Chile since 2005 and is under house arrest in the capital Santiago.
Peru accuses him of embezzling millions of dollars and of human rights abuses including involvement in two massacres during Peru's battle with the Shining Path Maoist rebel group.
He denies all the charges against him.
The 68-year-old fled to Japan - the country of his parents' birth - after his government collapsed in 2000 under the weight of a huge corruption scandal.
He lived there for five years and recently announced he intended to run in this month's Japanese Senate elections, a move dismissed by his critics as a ploy to avoid extradition from Chile.