Ex-president Vizcarra jailed as Peru court hands down 14-year corruption sentence

A court found the ex-president took more than $600,000 in bribes, ordering prison time, fines and a ban on office as Peru’s political turmoil continues with several former leaders already jailed.

Former Peruvian president Martín Vizcarra was transferred to Lima’s Barbadillo prison on Wednesday evening to begin serving a 14-year sentence, a day after a Peruvian court found him guilty of corruption, state news agency Andina reportedThursday.

The court ruled that Vizcarra accepted more than $600,000 in bribes in exchange for granting public works contracts to companies during his tenure as governor of the southern Moquegua region between 2011 and 2014.

"It is noted that Martin Vizcarra committed illegal acts by taking advantage of his position as Moquegua region governor, conditioning the bidders to award them the contract in exchange for money," the judge stated.

In addition to the prison term, the 62-year-old former president was ordered to pay a $28,052 fine and $690,511 in compensation, to be paid jointly with other defendants. The court also barred him from holding public office for nine years.

“This is not justice, it is revenge,” Vizcarra wrote on X after the verdict. “But they will not break me.”

He had previously been taken to prison in August after an investigative court ordered five months of pretrial detention over the bribery allegations, but was released three weeks later after an appeals court overturned the preventive custody order.

Vizcarra, who governed Peru from March 2018 until his impeachment in November 2020, is the latest former president to be jailed at Barbadillo. He joins three other former leaders who are currently in prison, including Alejandro Toledo, who received a second prison sentence in October for money laundering and corruption, and Ollanta Humala, who was sentenced in April to 15 years in prison for accepting bribes to finance his 2006 and 2011 election campaigns.