Former Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno has been sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of bribery in a corruption case linked to the construction of the country’s largest hydroelectric power plant.
An Ecuadorian court found the 73-year-old former leader guilty of accepting bribes connected to Chinese state-owned company Sinohydro and the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant. Moreno was also permanently barred from holding public office.
Moreno, who has a physical disability that prevents him from walking, will serve the sentence under house arrest, according to the Associated Press.
The case relates to Moreno’s period as vice president under former President Rafael Correa, before Moreno himself became president in 2017.
Prosecutors said the corruption network operated for several years around the Coca Codo Sinclair project, with bribes amounting to about 4% of the value of the project. Ecuadorian prosecutors have linked approximately $76.1 million in alleged bribes to the scheme.
Moreno’s wife, daughter and other relatives were also among those convicted in the case. His wife and daughter were each sentenced to 30 months in prison, while the court ordered those convicted to repay three times the amount they had illicitly received.
Sinohydro began construction of the roughly $2 billion Coca Codo Sinclair plant in 2010 before handing it over to Ecuador in 2016. The project has subsequently faced criticism over technical and structural problems.
Moreno served as Ecuador’s vice president from 2007 to 2013 and later as president from 2017 to 2021.
He becomes the third former Ecuadorian president to be sentenced for corruption, following Rafael Correa and Jamil Mahuad. (Newswire)