Ecuador's former president Lenin Moreno has been found guilty of taking bribes and sentenced to five years in prison. This was reported by infohub.kz.
The 73-year-old Moreno had insisted he did not take money from a Chinese firm that secured a contract to build a hydroelectric plant in the Latin American nation. However, a court in the capital, Quito, found him and 19 others guilty of corruption. Due to his age and disability, Moreno will serve his sentence under house arrest, and he has indicated he will appeal the verdict.
Moreno, who was president from 2017 to 2021, is the third former Ecuadorian leader to be sentenced for corruption. According to prosecutors, Sinohydro, owned by the Chinese state, paid a total of $76.1 million (£56.2 million) through shell companies to people involved in the deal to secure the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric dam.
Among those sentenced were Moreno's wife, daughter, and brother, as well as former plant managers, Sinohydro representatives, and a Chinese ambassador to Ecuador. While Moreno himself was alleged to have received very little from the scheme, prosecutors said his family members received tens of thousands of dollars.
Those convicted of bribery will have to repay three times what they received, and Moreno was barred from public office. He denied involvement in the alleged bribery scheme and instead blamed former president Rafael Correa, under whom he served as vice-president. Correa was sentenced to eight years in prison in a separate bribery case in 2020.
Moreno argued that Correa had signed off on the Coca Codo Sinclair project, and that he had launched an investigation into construction issues when he assumed the presidency. In 2021, the Ecuadorian government launched legal proceedings against Sinohydro due to cracks in the dam and other technical failures. Earlier this year, a $400 million settlement was reached with the company's owner.
The BBC has approached Sinohydro and the Chinese embassy in Ecuador for comment.