Peru court overturns ex-president Ollanta Humala's corruption conviction
Peru's constitutional court has annulled the 15-year prison sentence handed to former President Ollanta Humala for corruption, declaring the proceedings void. The decision could lead to his release from prison.
In a significant legal reversal, Peru's constitutional court has quashed the corruption conviction of former President Ollanta Humala, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison. The court declared the entire criminal case against him null and void, and local media reported that he is expected to be freed from Barbadillo Prison in Lima.
Humala, who served as president from 2011 to 2016, was convicted in 2025 of accepting illegal funds from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht to finance his election campaigns in 2006 and 2011. The former president had indicated he would appeal the verdict.
Following the ruling, Humala's lawyer, Julio Espinoza Goyena, wrote on social media that the court determined the contributions received by his client during electoral campaigns "do not constitute money laundering." He urged the criminal chamber handling the case to order a definitive dismissal and the release of former President Humala.
Humala's wife, Nadine Heredia, had also been convicted of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years in prison. However, she was granted safe passage to Brazil after seeking asylum at the Brazilian embassy.
The case is part of the broader Odebrecht corruption scandal that has ensnared multiple Peruvian leaders. Humala became the first of four former presidents to be investigated in connection with the company's illicit payments. Alejandro Toledo, who governed from 2001 to 2006, was sentenced last year to more than 20 years in prison for accepting $35 million in bribes. Alan García, who served two terms, took his own life in 2019 as he faced imminent arrest over allegations he had been bribed by Odebrecht; he denied the charges. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, president from 2016 to 2018, faced impeachment proceedings after it emerged that Odebrecht had paid him millions during his previous government role; he has maintained the payments were legal.
In their own trial, Humala and Heredia, co-founders of the Nationalist Party, were accused of taking $3 million from Odebrecht to fund the 2011 campaign and $200,000 from Chávez to support the 2006 campaign. The couple consistently maintained they were victims of political persecution.
Humala, a former army officer, rose to national prominence in 2000 when he led a short-lived military rebellion against then-President Alberto Fujimori. He ran for president in 2006 on a socialist platform inspired by Chávez but lost. In 2011, he adopted a more moderate stance, emulating policies of Brazil's then-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and defeated right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori, the eldest daughter of Alberto Fujimori.
His legal troubles began shortly after leaving office in 2016, when Odebrecht admitted to bribing officials and parties across Latin America. Humala and his wife were placed in pre-trial detention for a year before their 2025 conviction.
