Prosecutors request three years in prison for former Odebrecht boss in Peru after breaking collaboration agreement

Peruvian prosecutors on Wednesday requested three years of preventive imprisonment for the former director in Peru of Brazilian construction company Odebrecht after revoking a collaboration agreement that had made him a witness in the money laundering trials against politician Keiko Fujimori and former president Ollanta Humala.

In a statement, the prosecutor’s office said it had named Brazilian Jorge Barata, a 61-year-old engineer and former director of the construction company between 2011 and 2016, as an accomplice to the crime of aggravated collusion in an investigation into a case called “Gasoducto Sur Peruano.” Barata lives in Brazil, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office said that former President Humala (2006-2011) and his wife Nadine Heredia had colluded with Odebrecht to defraud the Peruvian State in the bidding for a project that sought to build a pipeline of more than 1,000 kilometers to transport natural gas and provide fuel to thousands of homes in the southern regions of Peru.

A week ago, the prosecution announced that it had revoked the effective collaboration agreement with Barata. The pact was broken after the Brazilian “failed to comply with his obligation to testify” as a witness in the trial for alleged money laundering against former President Humala, for whom the prosecution has requested 20 years in prison.

Barata was also due to be involved in a separate money laundering trial against powerful politician Keiko Fujimori, head of the conservative Fuerza Popular party. Prosecutors have requested a 30-year prison sentence for Fujimori, who has lost three consecutive presidential elections in 2011, 2016 and 2021.

In 2019, the Peruvian prosecutor’s office signed an effective collaboration agreement with Odebrecht so that the construction company could provide key evidence to bring to trial the most powerful politicians in the Andean country who are being investigated for their alleged ties with the construction company that since 2016 has admitted to paying millions in bribes in almost all of Latin America to be awarded infrastructure projects.

Most of the presidents who have governed Peru since 2001 have pending accounts with the justice system for their ties to the Brazilian construction company.

Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) is currently in prison after being extradited from the United States, former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) is also prohibited from leaving the country, and Alan García, who governed between 1985 and 1990 and then between 2006 and 2011, committed suicide in 2019 minutes before being arrested while being investigated for alleged bribes received from Odebrecht.

In 2019, the Peruvian justice system imposed its first eight-year prison sentence in a case related to the Brazilian construction company against former governor César Álvarez for awarding the construction of a highway in the Andes to that company.

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