The former president of Peru, Olat Humala, was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
A court in the capital Lima said Humala accepted illegal funds from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht to bankrupt its election campaigns in 2006 and 2011.
His wife, Nadine, Eredia, who co -founded the Nationalist Party with Humala, is also recognized guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years.
Prosecutors have asked Humala to be sentenced to 20 years in prison and Heredia at the age of 26 and a half years.
After a trial of more than three years, the court gave its long -awaited sentence on Tuesday.
Humala is personally present on the sentence while his wife hears it through a video connection.
The 62-year-old former president and his wife denied any misconduct.
Humala, a former army officer who was fighting against the Maoist brilliant rebels, first reached national fame in 2000 when he led a short -lived military rebellion against then President Alberto Fujimori.
In 2006, he was running for president. At that time, he allied with the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez and prosecutors claiming that Humala had accepted illegal funding from Chavez to fund his campaign.
His chairman's opponent Alan Garcia uses Humala's close relationships with Chavez as a way to attack him, warning voters “not to allow Peru to become another Venezuela.”
In 2011, Humala was ranked again for the Presidency, this time on a more measured platform.
He said that instead of imitating the Socialist Revolution of Chavez in Venezuela, he would model his policies on those of the Brazilian president at the time, Luis Inasio Lula da Silva.
His approach turned out to be successful and he defeated his right rival Kiiko Fujimori.
But violent social conflicts at the beginning of his Presidency quickly excavated his popularity.
He also lost the support of many members of the congress, further weakening his position.
His legal problems began shortly after his term ended in 2016.
In the same year, Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht admitted that he was paying hundreds of millions of dollars bribes to government officials and political parties in Latin America to win business orders.
Prosecutors accused Humala and his wife of receiving millions of dollars from odebrecht.
A year later, a judge ordered the couple to be placed in pre-trial detention.
They were released after a year, but an investigation into their odebrecht relationships continued, ended with today's sentence.