(Incorporates CHILE-FUJIMORI/)

By Monica Vargas

SANTIAGO, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was being flown out of Chile on Saturday to face charges of human rights abuse and corruption seven years after fleeing Peru for Japan.

Fujimori, who ruled Peru from 1990-2000, had once hoped to return to his home under his own volition to rekindle his political career.

Instead, he left the Chilean capital Santiago aboard a Peruvian police airplane, bound for Lima to face charges he ordered two notorious massacres in the early 1990s during Peru's fight with the Maoist rebel group the Shining Path.

A helicopter took Fujimori from his house outside Santiago to the airport, where he slowly boarded the small propeller-powered plane, stopping briefly to wave and smile to cameras before disappearing inside.

The 69-year-old's forced departure from Chile comes nearly two years after he arrived unexpectedly in Santiago from Japan, the country of his parents' birth.

He had spent five years in exile in Japan following the collapse of his government in 2000 and had hoped to launch a bid for the Peruvian presidency in 2006.

But he was arrested on an international warrant and has spent the past two years fighting extradition.

That battle ended on Friday when Chile's Supreme Court ruled in favor of Peruvian prosecutors, unanimously accepting evidence linking Fujimori to the two massacres -- known as Barrios Altos and La Cantuta.

Students, a professor and a child were among the 25 killed in the massacres, which Peruvian state prosecutors blame on death squads run by Fujimori's government.

Fujimori was expected to arrive in Lima in the early afternoon, after making two stops along the way.

Fujimori spokesman Carlos Raffo asked the government on Friday to take measures to ensure the former president's safety once he arrives, suggesting how divisive Fujimori remains even seven years after his fall from power.

For some Peruvians, he is the man who had the guts not only to stand up to the Shining Path but to send troops into the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima in 1997 to end a four-month hostage crisis.

Others view him as a corrupt despot who milked state funds for himself and cronies during his tenure. (Additional reporting by Rodrigo Martinez, Antonio de la Jara and Pav Jordan in Santiago and Maria Luisa Palomino and Marco Aquino in Lima)

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