Saca Leaves Prison After Serving Full 10-Year Corruption Term
Former Salvadoran president Elias Antonio Saca reported to court on Thursday after admitting to moving more than $300m out of public funds.
By Grace Anderson ·
Elias Antonio Saca walked out of prison this week after completing a decade behind bars for corruption. The 61-year-old arrived at court on Thursday to formalize his release, his lawyer Mario Machado said, adding that Saca served the term in full without early-release benefits.
Saca held El Salvador's presidency from 2004 to 2009 as a candidate of the Nationalist Republican Alliance. A plea deal required him to admit diverting and laundering more than $300m from public funds. Prosecutors at trial said he took money from the state budget for himself and others, including more than $7m that went to his former party. A court also ordered him to repay $260m to the state.
The case moved quickly once investigators closed in. Saca was arrested at his son's wedding in 2016. In September 2018, a judge gave him five years for embezzlement and five years for money laundering, sentences that ran together to total 10 years. The plea bargain spared him a possible 30-year prison term. In 2019, he was convicted of offering $10,000 to a court employee for case information, and the judge folded that penalty into the existing 10-year term.
Saca is a businessman and former radio broadcaster. He is one of four Salvadoran presidents to face corruption charges. His successor, Mauricio Funes, fled to Nicaragua in September 2016 and died there in 2025.
