Ollanta Humala, the former president of Peru, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of money laundering. Humala was found guilty of accepting illegal funds from a Brazilian construction company to fund his 2006 and 2011 campaigns. The company, Odebrecht, was said to have bankrolled him.
His wife, Nadine Heredia, was also found guilty of money laundering and subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison as well. She was the co-founder of the Nationalist Party with his husband. According to Peru's foreign minister, the former first lady has been granted asylum in Brazil and would have a safe passage to travel there with her son.
The BBC reported that the prosecutor had asked the court to sentence the former president to 20 years in prison while his wife should be jailed for 26 and a half years.
The court had given its long-awaited judgment on Tuesday, April 15, following a three-year-long trial. The former president was present at the court, but his wife attended via a video link. Meanwhile, the couple had denied any wrongdoing in the suit.
The former president was a former military officer who fought against the rebel group known as the Maoist Shining Path. He came into national prominence in 2000 when he staged a short-lived military rebellion against ex-President Alberto Fujimori.
He contested for president in 2006. He allied with the then-Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. The prosecutor then alleged that Humala received some illegal funds from Chávez for his election campaigns.
Alan García, his opponent in the election, used the former president's close ties with Chavez as a major means to attack him and warned the voters "not to let Peru turn into another Venezuela".
In 2011, Humala contested for the presidency again, and the platform was more moderate than that of 2006. He had campaigned on rather than emulating the socialist revolution of Chávez in Venezuela, his policies would be modelled on those of the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. His approach was successful and defeated his rival in the election.