Barbadillo: Inside the prison that holds Peru’s fallen Presidents

Barbadillo was not originally built to house a string of ex-heads of state. Managed by Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute (INPE), it was intended as a secure facility with capacity for a handful of inmates. Over time, however, it evolved into the detention site for presidents accused or convicted of corruption, abuse of power, or even attempted coups.

Who’s behind bars?

In recent years, Barbadillo has housed four former presidents in all. Alberto Fujimori (president 1990–2000) was its first occupant. Extradited from Chile, Fujimori was convicted in 2009 of authorising death-squad killings and other abuses and sentenced to 25 years. He then spent 16 years at Barbadillo. As he aged and fell ill, critics fought his 2017 pardon, but a 2023 court ultimately ordered his release on humanitarian grounds. On December 7, 2023, Barbadillo’s gates opened for Fujimori – now 85 – when Peru’s highest court restored his pardon.

Ollanta Humala (2011–2016) was also jailed at Barbadillo, but only briefly. In 2017, Peru built the facility for Fujimori, then transferred Humala there under guard when he faced a money-laundering probe tied to Odebrecht. Humala’s cell was kept separate from Fujimori’s, but both had similar quarters – a bedroom, office and a courtyard for gardening. (Humala and his wife were later freed on appeal.) Martín Vizcarra (2018–2020) spent just 22 days in Barbadillo in 2022 under pre-trial detention on graft allegations as a regional governor before a court ordered his release.

Pedro Castillo was whisked to Barbadillo immediately after his dramatic ouster and arrest in December 2022. Castillo, a former schoolteacher, had declared a self-coup attempt by announcing the dissolution of Congress, triggering his impeachment on charges of “rebellion and conspiracy”. He has been held on a preventive detention order – initially seven days, later extended to 36 months – while facing a trial for these charges. (He also faces separate graft investigations from his time in office.)

Alejandro Toledo arrived at Barbadillo in April 2023 after a lengthy extradition from the U.S. Reuters reports note he was ordered to serve 18 months of pre-trial detention in the Lima police base. Toledo is accused of taking up to $35 million in bribes from Brazil’s Odebrecht for public works (Interoceanica Sur highway). He has denied wrongdoing, but in October 2024, a court convicted him of accepting bribes and sentenced him to 20.5 years, and in September 2025, a second conviction (money laundering) added 13 years. He is now formally serving those terms concurrently in Barbadillo’s Lima police-base prison.

What life inside looks like

Compared to overcrowded Peruvian prisons, Barbadillo offers relatively privileged conditions: a small number of cells, personal bathrooms, study areas, and even garden access. While these amenities have raised debates about whether ex-presidents are being treated too leniently, the facility remains far from luxurious.

Built originally for former President Alberto Fujimori upon his 2007 extradition, Barbadillo sits inside a fenced special-operations police base, and its official capacity is only two (later expanded to three) inmates

In practice, it has become Peru’s “presidential prison,” quietly holding a parade of ex-leaders. Despite its upgraded quarters, Barbadillo is not gilded: authorities stress it has no secret luxuries, only slightly roomier cells than the country’s overcrowded jails.

Each bedroom in Barbadillo is roughly 4×4 meters and comes with basic furniture, including a bed, a couch, and a table, but no bars on the windows.

Wilfredo Pedraza, former head of Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute and now Ollanta Humala’s lawyer, described Barbadillo as “a prison without the usual barred windows.”

For many Peruvians, Barbadillo is both a symbol of justice catching up with corrupt leaders and a reminder of the country’s ongoing governance crisis.