Former Peruvian President Ollanta Humala has announced he does not rule out returning to politics while confirming plans to sue the Peruvian state.
Speaking at a press conference held for the Foreign Press Association of Peru, the former leader said he intends to seek legal damages for harm suffered during his prosecution under the Lava Jato corruption investigation.
Humala stated that he still considers himself young rather than relatively young, adding that he feels he has no limits in what he wants to do in the future. However, he emphasized that his primary priority is to resolve his ongoing legal matters and reunify his family.
His wife, former First Lady Nadine Heredia, who was also previously sentenced for money laundering in connection with the investigation, currently resides in Brazil, where she has been granted political asylum alongside their minor son.
Humala served as President of Peru from 2011 to 2016. Peru has seen multiple former leaders face scrutiny under Operation Lava Jato, a sweeping anti-corruption investigation that originated in Brazil before expanding across Latin America to probe illicit payments made by major construction firms to public officials.
Legal action against the Peruvian state
Humala insisted that a lawsuit against the Peruvian government is necessary to repair his family's reputation. He rejected claims that a ruling by the Constitutional Court represented an amnesty law that simply archived the case and ended the matter.
He argued that without a formal lawsuit against the state, many people in Peru and abroad might continue to believe that the original accusations against him were legitimate.
Peru's Constitutional Court acts as the highest judicial body for constitutional law in the country. The Lava Jato case in Peru has focused on allegations of illegal campaign financing and money laundering involving international construction conglomerates.
Sharp criticism of special prosecutors
The former president launched severe criticism against the prosecutors of the Lava Jato Special Prosecution Team, joining other political figures in Peru who have condemned the squad's methods.
Humala compared the special prosecutors to the Colina group, an infamous Peruvian military death squad established in the 1990s. He remarked that the prosecutors reminded him of the group because they were created for a purpose that became perverted, claiming that while the death squad committed contract killings with state-issued weapons, the special prosecutors perverted the criminal procedure code using their pens.
Humala further claimed he was the victim of a targeted hunt against politicians driven by special prosecutors seeking personal fame. He asserted that treatment was noticeably different for construction firms and executives from Odebrecht, OAS, and other companies.
He accused the special prosecutors of being disloyal traitors to the country, arguing that they perverted their original mandate to follow the regional branches of Lava Jato in Peru and instead pursued politicians to build their own public profiles.
Odebrecht and OAS are major Brazilian infrastructure conglomerates at the center of Latin America's Lava Jato corruption investigations, which exposed widespread corporate bribery of public officials across the region.
