LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's jailed former President Alberto Fujimori made a second bid to be held under house arrest on Friday, saying he fears the 25-year prison sentence he is serving for human rights abuses and corruption will lead to his "slow death" behind bars.
Fujimori, 76, said a Peruvian court's 2013 decision to deny him house arrest for what remains of his sentence should be reverted to protect his health.
"If I go on like this, I will breathe my last sigh before finishing this sentence," Fujimori told an appeals panel. "I don't believe I will make it to 95."
Fujimori has been imprisoned since 2007 for crimes committed during his 1990-2000 term.
In 2009 he was sentenced to 25 years for ordering death squads to carry out massacres that killed 25 people during a crackdown on leftist insurgents.
Fujimori has frequently complained about health problems from prison. In March, he was hospitalized briefly after suffering a small stroke and had previously undergone surgery for a growth on his tongue.
On Friday, Fujimori told the appeals panel that his imprisonment would be "a slow death."
In 2013, Peru's President Ollanta Humala rejected Fujimori's request to be pardoned and released from prison on humanitarian grounds after a medical review found he was not suffering a fatal disease as claimed.
(Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Mitra Taj; Editing by Richard Lough and Lisa Shumaker)