Lima  - Peruvian legislator Keiko Fujimori launched Wednesday a national crusade for her father, former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, after he was sentenced to 25 years in jail for human rights violations.

"We want to go to the furthermost villages in the country, where people suffered the evil of terrorism, to publicize this most unfair sentence," Keiko Fujimori said in a meeting with foreign correspondents in Lima.

In a historic ruling, Fujimori - who governed Peru 1990-2000 before faxing his resignation from Japan - was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in jail on Tuesday for human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, including ordering the massacre of 25 people.

The Peruvian court convicted Fujimori of crimes committed during his 10 years in office, making him the first former democratically elected president to be sentenced to prison for human rights abuses, according to international rights group Human Rights Watch.

Fujimori, 70, immediately announced he would appeal the sentence.

"Such a tough sentence will be a boomerang for Fujimori's persecutors. There are many people who support my father. The ruling is not a defeat of Fujimorism. On the contrary, it strengthens us, and the reaction (against it) will multiply," Keiko Fujimori said.

Keiko Fujimori, 33, a senator for the extreme-right coalition Alliance for the Future (AF) who is widely regarded as a presidential candidate for 2011, has emerged from her father's trial as the new leader of his political sector.

The legislator complained that the court did not take into account her father's defence.

"It seems that everything had been done, cooked and consumated (prior to the hearings)," she said.

Keiko Fujimori further complained that her father was convicted "like a terrorist leader."

"I do not believe that there was asystematic human rights violation policy, since the anti-terrorist policy to achieve the pacification of Peru was to strengthen the Armed Forces, to have state presence in faraway places and to gain back the confidence of the population," she argued. (dpa)