Buenos Aires, November 26 (NA) -- Former Peru President Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020) was sentenced this Wednesday to 14 years in prison for the crime of passive bribery. The court found that he received over 2.3 million soles (about $700,000) when he was governor of the southern region of Moquegua (2011-2014), before becoming head of state.
The president of the Fourth National Collegiate Criminal Court, Fernanda Ayasta, declared it proven that the 62-year-old Vizcarra proposed and received a bribe of one million soles from the company Obrainsa to award it the Lomas de Ilo agricultural irrigation project in 2013, as well as that he received in cash more than 1.3 million soles from the company ICCGSA to develop the improvement of the Moquegua Hospital, reported the site DW and accessed by the Argentine News Agency.
The judge emphasized that Vizcarra committed "illegal acts" taking advantage of his position as regional governor, by delivering contracts "in exchange for money," as the Argentine News Agency was able to gather.
In addition to the 14 years of effective prison sentence, with immediate execution, the court also imposed a disqualification from holding public office for 9 years and a fine of 94,900 soles ($28,100).
"Peru is first and no one will silence it," added the former leader, who asked to vote for his brother, who will replace him as a presidential candidate in the 2026 elections.
Vizcarra, who governed with record levels of popularity, left the court escorted by agents of the National Police of Peru, who handed him over to the National Penitentiary Institute (Inpe) for his entry into prison.
The center-left politician will go to prison at the same time as three other former Peruvian presidents: Pedro Castillo (2021-2022), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006).
My brother Mario Vizcarra will continue this struggle for you.
Although the Prosecutor's Office had requested 15 years in prison, the court considered as a mitigating factor that the former president has no criminal record.
Minutes after hearing the sentence, and still in the courtroom, Vizcarra, who made the fight against corruption his banner, shared a message on his X (Twitter) account in which he stated that he was sentenced "for confronting the mafious pact" that dominates Congress, a bloc of conservative forces that ousted him in 2020 when these past signs of corruption appeared, but which the former governor claimed was revenge for having closed Congress in 2019 when they were obstructing his reforms.
The answer is in the ballot boxes. "This is not justice, it's revenge. But they are not going to break me."
