Wednesday, October 23, 2024 - A court in Peru has sentenced former
President Alejandro Toledo to 20 years and six months in prison after finding
him guilty of corruption and money laundering.
Prosecutors accused Toledo, who served as president from 2001 to 2006,
of accepting $35 million in bribes from the Brazilian construction company
Odebrecht in exchange for awarding them a contract to build a highway in
southern Peru.
Toledo, 78, was arrested in California five years ago, where he had been
living and working for many years. He was extradited to Peru in 2023 to face
charges. Odebrecht, now renamed Novonor, previously admitted to paying millions
in bribes to officials across Latin America and the U.S. to secure lucrative
government contracts.
During the sentencing, Judge Inés Rojas highlighted that Toledo had
violated the trust placed in him by the Peruvian people, who expected him to
manage the nation’s finances responsibly. Instead, she said, he defrauded the
state. The former president denied the charges throughout the trial and was
seen smirking and laughing during the court proceedings.
Toledo is not the only former Peruvian leader implicated in the
Odebrecht scandal. In 2019, former president Alan García took his own life when
police arrived to arrest him over similar bribery charges. Two other former
presidents, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Ollanta Humala, are also under
investigation in connection with the case.
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