A Peruvian court has sentenced former president Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, to 15 years in prison for laundering funds received from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht to finance Humala’s 2006 and 2011 campaigns.
The judges of the national superior court found that Humala and Heredia received several million dollars in illegal contributions for these campaigns from Odebrecht and the government of the then Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez.
The verdict makes Humala the third former Peruvian president to be imprisoned for corruption in the last two decades. He joins Alejandro Toledo, sentenced in 2024 to 20 years for Odebrecht-related crimes, and Alberto Fujimori, who received multiple convictions for corruption and human rights abuses.
The trial began in 2022, and alongside the 62-year-old former military officer and his 48-year-old wife, the court convicted eight others. Both Humala and Heredia were held in pre-trial detention from 2017 to 2018 at the prosecutor’s request to prevent their flight.
Odebrecht’s 2016 admission of widespread bribery across Latin America preceded the initial investigations against Humala, which started in 2015, a year before the company’s revelations.
Most of the presidents who have governed Peru since 2001 have faced legal problems due to their connections with Odebrecht. Toledo is currently imprisoned, while the former president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, is under house arrest. Alan García, who served two non-consecutive terms, died by suicide in 2019 as authorities moved to arrest him in connection with Odebrecht bribes.
In addition to former presidents, prominent figures such as the former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori and numerous ex-governors are also under investigation. (The Guardian)