An Ecuadoran court on Friday sentenced former Ecuadoran president Lenin Moreno to five years in prison for accepting bribes from a Chinese company that built the country’s biggest hydroelectric dam.
The prosecution said on social media that Moreno, who governed from 2017 to 2021, was among 20 people convicted in the case involving the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair dam by China’s Sinohydro.
Moreno was vice-president under socialist former Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa at the time of the alleged corruption, between 2007 and 2013.
Photo: AFP
He succeeded Correa, with the latter’s backing, but later fell out with his mentor by shifting to the right and aligning himself more closely with the US.
Moreno has already announced plans to appeal the court’s ruling, which also saw his wife and other relatives sentenced to about three years in prison for complicity.
Prosecutors had sought a six-and-a-half-year prison term for Moreno.
The 73-year-old paraplegic, who served as the UN special envoy on disability issues, insisted on Friday after the ruling that he had never received “a single cent” from Sinohydro.
He blamed the case on “the Correa regime,” saying his former backer-turned-rival, who has also been convicted of corruption but lives in Belgium, “promised to take revenge on me.”
Prosecutors said Sinohydro paid bribes totaling US$76 million, about 4 percent of the cost of the hydroelectric project.
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