Peru ex-president`s embezzlement sentence overturned

Lima: Peru`s supreme court has overturned an embezzlement sentence against former president Alberto Fujimori, although the decision will not alter the 25-year prison term he is serving for crimes against humanity.

The disgraced former leader was sentenced in January 2015 to eight years in prison for diverting some 122 million soles ($40 million) in state funds to help manipulate the media.

The sentence had only symbolic effect, however, with prisoners in Peru serving only the longest of their concurrent sentences.

The court`s decision, which was released Tuesday by local media, concluded that Fujimori`s embezzlement trial had ended "without proving his guilt and responsibility, nor his innocence."

The 78-year-old ex-president has denied the embezzlement charges, claiming there was no evidence that he participated in delivery of the money.

Fujimori has been in jail since 2007 on a 25-year sentence over the killing of 25 people by a government-backed death squad in Peru`s war against the Maoist Shining Path rebel group.

He has been in and out of the hospital in recent months due to a series of health problems.