Ex-President Ollanta Humala’s wife, Nadine Heredia, has been banned from leaving the country for the next 12 months. The travel ban has also been slapped on three former cabinet ministers during the Humala administration (2011-2016), Jorge Merino, René Cornejo and Carlos Paredes.
Justice Jorge Chavez said he considered Heredia and the former ministers pose a flight risk. Chavez initially accepted the proposal of an 18-month travel ban but later ruled that 12 months was sufficient.
Heredia is under investigation for alleged collusion and influence to favor the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht in the government’s negotiations to develop the South Peru Gas Pipeline project during Humala’s administration.
Odebrecht campaign funds investigation completed
Meanwhile, both Heredia and Humala have been under investigation for the past four years, since early 2016, for allegedly receiving irregular campaign donations from Odebrecht and other sources for the 2006 and 2011 presidential campaigns. They served nine months in preventive custody between July 2017 and May 2018, and several properties were impounded.
The investigation was completed this past weekend and the prosecutor has 30 days to present the formal charges. The trial is expected to begin in late March or early April.
It will be the first case to go to court from the multiple investigations into the widespread Odebrecht corruption network known as Lava Jato. The controversial investigations into the irregular but not illegal campaign funding given by Odebrecht also include Keiko Fujimori, recently released from preventive custody; former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, under house arrest; and former Lima mayor Susana Villaran, in pre-trial custody. Investigations were closed into former President Alan Garcia following Garcia’s suicide in April 2019. Meanwhile, former President Alejandro Toledo is in solitary confinement in a jail in California, awaiting the extradition hearings on charges of receiving several million dollars in bribes from Odebrecht.
