The country's former leader has been finally convicted of bribery, corruption, collusion and money laundering.  He's an economist who holds a doctorate and he's condemned to 20 years and six months imprisonment.

For years everybody assumed he'd get away with it.  Nobody believed that the man once in such demand as guest speaker at international conferences, lecturing other leaders on his economic miracles and social policy successes, would finally end up in jail.

Despite strong suspicions, the state failed to find any money of unexplained origin in his or his wife's accounts.  He never met the people who had given him bribes.  Everybody thought he was just too powerful, that all potential witnesses would remain silent forever, that nobody would ever dare expose him. He thought so too himself.  He felt invincible and secure - so secure that he frequently smirked during his trial. At times he laughed at the judge when she struggled to read transcripts or understand evidence presented in the case. He was convinced nobody could nail him.

But at the end of his trial he was reduced to pleading with the court, the palms of his hands held together and with a broken voice, to let him return home.

His former friends had turned on him.  Company representatives admitted bribing him to secure public contracts. One man who attended his parties and was frequently seen with the leader was the one who brought him down.  He admitted to being the straw man holding the millions in bribes in his own accounts for the leader.

The judge showed no emotion as she condemned the once powerful leader to 20 long years of jail.  She ignored his pleas for clemency.  His victims, the judge declared, were his fellow countrymen who "trusted" him as their leader.  He was "in charge of managing public finances and responsible for protecting and ensuring the correct use of resources". Instead the court concluded "he defrauded the state".

Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo had escaped justice for over 20 years.  He ruled Peru between 2001 and 2006.  He was a fugitive from his own country, living in the United States and evading extradition for years. But finally justice caught up with him.

Toledo was betrayed by the very company that bribed him. Jorge Barrata, a representative of Odebrecht, the Brazilian company that paid 35 million dollars for Toledo to award it a lucrative contract to build a road between Peru and Brazil, testified in court. He revealed that the millions of dollars that went to third parties were meant for the leader.

One of those third parties, Josef Maiman, struck a deal with the state.  He would be absolved of criminal prosecution and pay a nominal 1.2 million dollar fine as long as he agreed to testify against Toledo. The testimony of the millionaire Maiman nailed Toledo.  He gave details of how the tens of millions of dollars found in his accounts were bribes intended for Toledo.  He revealed that the 5 million dollar property that Toledo's mother-in-law, Eva Fernenbug, bought was paid through two secret companies in Costa Rica and Panama and a company linked to Maiman.  Maiman revealed that he was just the intermediary and he had bought the property to launder some of the bribe money for Toledo.

The leader desperately protested that his prosecution was just "political persecution" and a "witch hunt". His lawyers tried everything to block his prosecution and disrupt his trial.  They complained about the procedures used, the lack of defence representation and claimed that the judge was not impartial.  They protested that Toledo's rights had been violated and that the use of a collaboration witness was illegal.

Toledo did everything he could to discredit the witnesses, including his close friend Josef Maiman who testified against him. He accused Maiman of being "a compulsive storyteller - he betrayed our friendship, he betrayed me".  He contradicted himself later claiming that Maiman "isn't my best friend, never was". The leader claimed that the evidence against him was all lies.  He continued to insist that the Peruvian authorities had found no signs whatsoever of wealth from unknown sources in his or his wife's accounts".

Alejandro Toledo will now pay for his crimes.  Justice may have been delayed, but it tastes no less sweet for the millions of Peruvians who were cheated by their leader.

That is a cautionary tale for our own former leader.  The silence of those who colluded, the secrecy of close friends won't last forever. Decades may pass but the long arm of justice might yet reach those who engineered the Vitals scheme, the Electrogas scam, the SOCAR deal, the Mozura windfarm and so much more.

Those whose duty it is to enforce the law, to prosecute those who break it and to protect the state from being looted will some day need to answer for failing that duty. Our Attorney General was responsible for quantifying the amount of assets that should be frozen in the case of Yorgen Fenech, depending on the size of the crime he is accused of.

Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg failed to do so. There was a deadline for quantifying those assets. The AG did not meet that deadline.  And the court had no option but to cancel the freezing order.  None of Yorgen Fenech's assets remain frozen.  All those assets are free to be moved, to be disposed of, transferred or concealed.

When asked to explain how this was even possible, the AG's office hid behind the court's own order prohibiting any commentary or reporting about the murder case outside what is publicly revealed in court.

These are not mistakes.  These are not mere slip-ups.

Twenty years passed since Toledo's abuses.  Yet the people of Peru never forgot how their leader betrayed their trust.  They never gave up hope that justice would one day be served.  And neither will we.

Peru had to wait. We too can wait. Peru's perseverance bore fruit - and so will ours.