Ollanta Humala, the former president of Peru, was convicted guilty of money laundering and given a 15-year jail sentence.
According to a Lima court, Ollanta Humala took illicit money from Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht and then-President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela to finance his 2006 and 2011 political campaigns.
According to Humala’s attorney, he will challenge the verdict.
Nadine Heredia, his wife, was also convicted of money laundering and given a 15-year prison term. But after applying for refuge at the Brazilian consulate, she was given safe passage to Brazil.
According to Humala’s attorney, he will challenge the verdict.
Heredia was not in court when Judge Nayko Coronado handed down the punishment, unlike her husband, since she had gone into the Brazilian consulate with the couple’s kid before an arrest order could be issued.
Heredia was granted shelter by Brazil, and the Peruvian authorities agreed to honor the 1954 asylum treaty by allowing her and her son to go safely.
In the meanwhile, the 62-year-old former president was brought to Barbadillo jail, where Pedro Castillo and Alejandro Toledo, two other former leaders, are being detained.
Of the four Peruvian presidents under investigation in relation to the Odebrecht affair, Ollanta Humala was the first.
Toledo, who served as governor from 2001 to 2006, received a sentence of more than 20 years in jail last year for accepting $35 million (£26 million) in bribery from the business.
President Alan García, who served from 1985 to 1990 and 2006 to 2011, committed suicide in 2019 as he was about to be arrested on suspicion of being bought off by Odebrecht. The charges had been refuted by him.
Odebrecht paid Pedro Pablo Kuczynski millions of dollars in his prior government position, which led to impeachment proceedings against the 2016–2018 incumbent.
The inquiry is still under progress. Kuczynski has consistently insisted that the payments were lawful.
In order to fund his 2011 presidential campaign, prosecutors said that Ollanta Humala and his spouse, who cofounded the Nationalist Party, had collected $3 million in illicit donations from the company.
Additionally, they are suspected of stealing $200,000 from Hugo Chávez, the leader of Venezuela, in order to finance the 2006 campaign.
The pair has consistently insisted that they are being persecuted because of their political beliefs.
Their 15-year sentence was deemed “excessive” by Ollanta Humala’s attorney, Wilfredo Pedraza.
Prosecutors had requested 25 and a half years for Heredia and 20 years for the former president.
Ollanta Humala? Who is he?
Former army officer Humala fought against the Shining Path Maoist guerrillas. When he led a brief military uprising against then-President Alberto Fujimori in 2000, he initially gained national attention.
He stood for president in 2006 on a platform influenced by Chávez’s socialist revolution in Venezuela.
Humala’s opponent in the election, Alan García, won the president by warning voters “not to let Peru turn into another Venezuela.”
Humala defeated right-wing opponent Keiko Fujimori, the oldest daughter of Alberto Fujimori, in 2011 by running on a more moderate platform that mimicked the policies of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil at the time.
His popularity was swiftly damaged by violent social disputes, and many members of Congress stopped supporting him.
Odebrecht’s legal issues began soon after his tenure ended in 2016, when he acknowledged paying political parties and government officials in Latin America with hundreds of millions of dollars to get contracts.
In addition to obtaining millions from Odebrecht, prosecutors charged Ollanta Humala and his spouse of illegally supporting the 2006 presidential campaign through Chávez.
The pair was thrown in pre-trial imprisonment by a court a year later. After a year, they were freed, but the investigations against them went on, leading to the decision today.
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