Has any country ever had 2 former presidents in jail simultaneously?

score:53

Accepted answer

Quite a few candidates if:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_regimes_who_were_later_imprisoned

... [sort by country] is anything to go by...

  • Andalusia (technically an autonomous community in Spain) appears to have two former presidents sitting in jail since 2016.

  • Argentina has a whopping 8 presidents that sat in jail, including 2 from 2007 onward.

  • Bangladesh had 5 presidents who went to jail, of which two were behind bars in 1975.

  • Bosnia and Herzegovina had 2 presidents sitting in jail from 2006 to 2012.

  • Bulgaria had as many as 3 former prime ministers behind bars at the same time in 1944.

  • Comoros has 3 presidents and prime ministers behind bars at the time of writing this.

  • Costa Rica had 2 presidents behind bars from 2004 to 2012.

I'll stop at C, since the list is long, with a few honorable mentions:

  • Egypt appears to have had 5 former presidents in jail in 2013.

  • Guatemala 3 early in 2018

  • Hungary 4 in 1945

  • Iraq 4 in 2004

  • Japan 5 in 1945

  • Libya 4 in 2011

  • Pakistan 4 + 2 arrest warrants as I write this

The point is Brazil is not an exception.

One caveat: read the list with a fistful of salt, because it lists former French President Sarkozy as sitting behind bars since 2018, whereas he was only put in police custody for a day that year as he was charged with bribery and illegal campaign contributions. (He might sit in jail some day in the future, but the point here is that you may want to double check the data.) Also, Gaston Flosse of French Polynesia is listed twice.

Upvote:17

South Korea right now has their last two presidents, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye in jail.

Then again, almost all ex-presidents of South Korea end up either on trial or committing suicide...

Upvote:33

Peru has an interesting case of former presidents being incarcerated or in the eye of justice.

  • Alberto Fujimori in right now in prison, for human right violations, 25 years of conviction.
  • Ollanta Humala is in preventive reclusion, investigated for corruption.
  • Alejandro Toledo. In jail, waiting for his trial for money laundering. Case Oderbrecht (link in Spanish), that started in Brasil.
  • Alan GarcΓ­a, twice president, twice investigated for corruption. He killed himself when he was going to be sent to preventive reclusion.
  • Pedro Castillo. Was detained for rebellion and conspiracy, he could not finish his term. In jail now, waiting his trial as well.

Summary, if you have been a Peruvian president, you are probably under investigation by the justice. Right now (may 2023), four former presidents are in jail (three of them in the same place), but only one with sentence.

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