Peru’s former president Alejandro Toledo has been sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison after he was linked to a corruption scandal involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Odebrecht became synonymous with corruption across Latin America after the firm paid millions of dollars in bribes to government officials and others.
Authorities accused Toledo of accepting 35 million dollars (£26.9 million) in bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for allowing the construction of a highway in the South American country.
The National Superior Court of Specialised Criminal Justice in Lima, Peru’s capital, imposed the sentence after years of legal wrangling.
Such wrangling included a dispute over whether Toledo, who governed Peru from 2001 to 2006, could be extradited from the United States.
Judge Ines Rojas said Toledo’s victims were Peruvians who “trusted” him as their president.
Ms Rojas explained that in that role, Toledo was “in charge of managing public finances” and responsible for “protecting and ensuring the correct” use of resources.
Instead, she said, he “defrauded the state.”
Odebrecht, which built some of Latin America’s most crucial infrastructure projects, admitted to US authorities in 2016 to having bought government contracts throughout the region with generous bribes.
The US Department of Justice’s investigation led to probes in several countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, and Ecuador.
In Peru, authorities accused Toledo and three other former presidents of receiving payments from the construction giant.
They alleged Toledo received 35 million dollars (£26.9 million) from Odebrecht in exchange for the contract to build 403 miles of a highway linking Brazil with southern Peru.
That portion of the highway was initially estimated to cost 507 million dollars (£390.5 million), but Peru ended up paying 1.25 billion dollars (£962.8 million)
Toledo has denied the accusations against him.
The former president on Monday frequently smirked, and at times laughed, particularly when the judge mentioned multi-million-dollar sums central to the case as well as when she struggled to read transcripts and other evidence in the case.
Throughout the hearing, he also leaned to his right to speak with his lawyer.
He will serve his sentence at a prison on the outskirts of Lima.
The facility was specifically built to house former Peruvian presidents.
He was extradited to Peru in 2022 after a court of appeals denied a challenge to his extradition and he surrendered to authorities. He has since remained under preventive detention.
