Peru’s Constitutional Court has annulled the 15-year prison sentence handed to former president Ollanta Humala, declaring the criminal proceedings against him null and void.
The ruling paves the way for his release from Barbadillo Prison in Lima, where he has been held since 2025.
The court applied the same legal reasoning it used nine months ago to order the dismissal of another case against former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, who was investigated for the same offence and faced a 35-year prison term sought by prosecutors.
Humala and Fujimori were accused of receiving illicit funds to finance their respective presidential campaigns in 2006 and 2011.
In a ruling yesterday, the country’s highest constitutional court held that no one could be punished for an act that was not a criminal offence at the time it was committed.
According to the judges, the allegation that Humala used illicit funds to finance his 2006 and 2011 election campaigns did not constitute a criminal offence under Peruvian law until 2016.
Speaking after the ruling, Humala’s lawyer, Wilfredo Pedraza, told newsmen that the Constitutional Court’s decision would secure the former president’s release and bring the case to an end.
“The nullity decreed by the Constitutional Court will mean the freedom of the former president and the archiving of that criminal process,” Pedraza said.
Humala “has been detained for 15 months for a situation that is not a crime,” he added.
On April 15, 2025, the National Superior Court sentenced Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, to 15 years in prison for money laundering linked to the 2006 and 2011 presidential campaigns.
Humala was present in court that day, where he was immediately arrested and taken into custody. His wife, however, did not attend the hearing and instead sought asylum in Brazil with their 15-year-old son.
In its judgment, the National Superior Court held that Humala and his wife received about $3 million in illegal campaign contributions from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht and the government of then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Humala and his wife were previously held in preventive detention between 2017 and 2018 at the request of prosecutors, who argued there was a risk they could flee, despite their consistent attendance at court hearings.