Another One Bites The Dust
A Peruvian court this week sentenced former President Alejandro Toledo to more than 20 years in prison for corruption, in a case that marked Peru’s first high-profile conviction in relation to a continent-wide scandal involving Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht, the Guardian reported.
Toledo, who served as Peru’s president between 2001 and 2006, was accused of taking $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for a contract to build 403 miles of a highway that now connects Peru’s southern coast with Brazil’s Amazon region.
Although that portion of the road cost $507 million, Peru ended up paying $1.25 billion, according to the Associated Press.
In her verdict, Judge Inés Rojas said the former president was responsible for managing public finances and “protecting and ensuring the correct” use of resources, but instead “defrauded the state.”
Prosecutors had relied on the testimony of former Odebrecht executive Jorge Barata and Toledo’s former collaborator Josef Maiman. Barata claimed that the Peruvian leader called him three times after leaving office demanding his payment.
Toledo has denied the charges. He is expected to appeal the verdict.
The conviction is the latest fallout from the Odebrecht scandal, concerning the company that is responsible for some of the most important infrastructure projects in Latin America.
The company – now rebranded as Novonor – admitted in 2016 to having paid bribes to officials across South America to secure state contracts.
Toledo’s case began in 2019 when he was arrested at his home in California and later extradited to Peru in 2022.
Judge Rojas said that Toledo will receive credit for time served – he was jailed in April 2023. He will serve the rest of his sentence in a prison on the outskirts of the capital, Lima, designed specifically for former Peruvian presidents.
The prison is running out of room, noted NPR.
Meanwhile, two other former Peruvian presidents, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Ollanta Humala, are also being investigated in connection with the Odebrecht case.
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