The criminal prosecution of Donald Trump marks the first time that a former president has been charged in the United States, but it is by no means unprecedented in other parts of the world, such as in Latin America, where cases have proliferated.

The judicial investigations against Trump (2016-2020) exceed a dozen and range from tax fraud, the assault on the Capitol, maneuvers to interfere in the 2020 electoral result and sexual abuse. One of them, the possible bribery of the porn actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence, has cost him the first US president charged in a criminal case.

In the south of the continent, in Peru, four presidents have been prosecuted, including Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who has heard several sentences. The most 25 years in prison in 2009 as the mediate author of the crimes of Barrios Altos and La Cantuta, and two kidnappings.

Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) was in preventive detention for his relationship with the corruption case of the Odebrecht construction company. The scandal reached his successor, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), sentenced in April 2019 to a sentence of 3 years in pretrial detention, and Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), is pending extradition from the United States accused of having received bribes from that Brazilian company.

Alan García, who presided over Peru on two occasions (1985-1990 and 2006-2011), took his own life on April 7, 2019 when he was going to be arrested in the context of the Odebrecht case.

The last Peruvian president to emerge from the polls, Pedro Castillo (2021-2022), remains in custody for trying to dissolve Congress on December 7 and establish a national emergency government.

The Guatemalans Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004), imprisoned in the United States for money laundering, and Álvaro Colom (2008-2012), imprisoned in 2018 for his alleged relationship with a case of fraud and embezzlement, have also rendered accounts before the courts.

Panamanian justice sat Ricardo Martinelli (2009-14) on the bench for a case of alleged illegal wiretapping, after being arrested in the US and extradited to Panama in 2017 and, although he was acquitted in 2019, he is being investigated for other reasons .

In El Salvador, Francisco Flores (1999-2004) and Antonio Saca (2004-09) were tried. The first accused in 2014 of embezzlement and illicit enrichment. Saca was accused of money laundering, embezzlement and sent to pretrial detention.

Two other Central American countries, Honduras and Nicaragua, have also brought former presidents to the bench. Honduran Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado (2014-2022), extradited in April 2022 to the US to face charges of bribing drug traffickers, and Nicaraguan Arnoldo Alemán (1997-2002), sentenced to 20 years for money laundering in 2003.

In Argentina, in addition to Carlos Ménem (1989-1999), who went to court five times and received two sentences, the Peronist Cristina Fernández (2007-2015) was sentenced in 2022 to six years in prison and perpetual disqualification for irregularities between 2003 and 2015. A third Argentine democratic president, Fernando de la Rúa, was tried and exonerated of aggravated bribery.

In Ecuador Abdalá Bucaram (1996-1997) was prosecuted in 1998 for corruption, defamation and fraud against the State and sentenced to 4 years in prison for libel, and Rafael Correa (2007-2017) in April 2020 to eight years in prison and disqualification bribery policy.

The former president of Bolivia Jeanine Áñez (2019) has been in prison since 2021 accused of sedition and terrorism in relation to the incidents that in November 2019 forced the departure of Evo Morales.

The historic Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2002-2010), who has held that position again since last January, spent two years in prison before seeing two corruption convictions related to the state Petrobras, and the Colombian Álvaro Uribe ( 2002-2010), he was arrested in 2020 in a process for alleged procedural fraud and witness bribery.

Carlos Andrés Pérez, president of Venezuela for two terms (1974-1979 and 1989-1993), was sentenced in 1996 to 2 years and 4 months for “generic embezzlement.”

Africa, coups, corruption and crimes against humanity

In Africa these cases are even more frequent, and among the presidents prosecuted and convicted are Moussa Traoré (Mali), Pasteur Bizimungu (Rwanda), Mamadou Tandja (Niger), Jacob Zuma (South Africa), Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisia), Hosni Mubarak and his successor, the Islamist Mohamed Morsi (Egypt).

In addition, international justice reached three African leaders. Liberian President Charles Taylor (1997-2003), sentenced in 2012 to 50 years by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for crimes against humanity; the Chadian, Hissène Habré (1982-1990) accused by a Belgian court for crimes against humanity and the Sudanese Omar Hasán Ahmad al Bashir (1993-2019), who awaits his delivery to the International Criminal Court in The Hague also accused of crimes against humanity.

Up to four South Korean presidents have been sentenced: Chun Doo-hwan, for his involvement in a coup and corruption; his successor Roh Tae-woo, for treason, mutiny and corruption; Lee Myung-bak, for bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion, and President Park Geun-hye, for the so-called “Rasputina” case.

Perhaps one of the best-known cases is that of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (1979-2003), executed by hanging in 2006 for crimes committed in the town of Duyail in retaliation for a failed attack on his person.

In 2019 the president of Taiwan Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008) was sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption and in Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf (2001-2008), saw how in 2019 a court sentenced him “in absentia” to death for treason .

Sarkozi and Berlusconi: heavyweights of European politics

Among the rulers of Europe, the cases of French President Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stand out.

The Frenchman was tried for corruption and influence peddling and sentenced in March 2021 to three years in prison. In the case of Berlusconi, his problems with the Justice have made him sit on the bench more than ten times and he has been sentenced three times.