Peru constitutional court overturns ex-president Ollanta Humala corruption sentence
Peru's constitutional court has overturned a 15-year prison sentence handed to former president Ollanta Humala, nullifying the criminal proceedings against him in a major reversal in one of the country's most closely watched corruption cases. Humala, who led Peru from 2011 to 2016, had been convicted in 2025 over allegations that he accepted illegal funds to finance his election campaigns. He is now expected to be released from Barbadillo Prison in Lima, according to local media.
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The ruling centres on claims that Humala received money linked to the Venezuelan president and the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht for his 2006 and 2011 campaigns. After the decision, his lawyer Julio Espinoza Goyena said on social media that the court had determined the campaign contributions his client received "do not constitute money laundering". He added that the criminal chamber handling the case should order the definitive dismissal of the proceedings and the release of the former president.
Humala's wife, Nadine Heredia, was also convicted in the same case and sentenced to 15 years in prison for money laundering. She later received safe passage to Brazil after seeking asylum in the Brazilian embassy. The case has been one of the most prominent in Peru's long-running investigations into Odebrecht, the Brazilian company at the centre of corruption allegations across Latin America.
Humala was the first of four Peruvian presidents to be investigated in connection with the scandal. The ruling is significant because it affects a former head of state whose conviction had been seen as part of Peru's wider effort to prosecute senior political figures over corruption allegations. It also comes against the backdrop of a broader regional fallout from the Odebrecht affair, which has already led to convictions and investigations involving several former Peruvian leaders.
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Alejandro Toledo, who governed from 2001 to 2006, was sentenced last year to more than 20 years in prison for taking $35m in bribes from the company. Other former presidents have also faced legal consequences or investigations linked to the same scandal. Alan GarcÃa, who served two terms, died by suicide in 2019 as he faced imminent arrest over bribery allegations, which he denied.
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who was in office from 2016 to 2018, faced impeachment proceedings after it emerged that Odebrecht had paid him millions of dollars in a previous government role, and the investigation into him remains ongoing. The latest ruling therefore sits within a wider and still unresolved judicial reckoning over political financing and corruption in Peru. What remains unclear is the exact timing of Humala's release and whether prosecutors or other judicial authorities will seek further action after the constitutional court's decision.
The next step is expected to come from the criminal chamber handling the case, which may be asked to formally dismiss the proceedings. For now, the ruling marks a major legal turn in a case that has already involved convictions, asylum, and years of scrutiny over campaign funding.
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