Alejandro Toledo is the most recent Latin American chief to be implicated within the Odebrecht corruption scandal.
Peruvian ex-President Alejandro Toledo has been sentenced to greater than 20 years in jail, the most recent Latin American chief to be jailed in reference to the Odebrecht development agency corruption scandal.
Toledo was convicted of taking $35m in bribes from the Brazilian development agency in alternate for a freeway development contract, and was sentenced to twenty years and 6 months in jail on Monday.
“I wish to go to a personal clinic. I ask you please to let me get higher or die at residence,” Toledo mentioned at a listening to final week, saying that he was coping with well being points stemming from most cancers.
The 78-year-old former chief of the Andean nation, who served in workplace from 2001 to 2006, acquired one of many harshest sentences but handed out in connection to Odebrecht’s marketing campaign of bribery in alternate for political favours throughout the continent.
Throughout a yearlong trial, Toledo persistently denied expenses of cash laundering and collusion levelled towards him by prosecutors. He was first arrested in the USA in 2019 after Peru requested his extradition, and was despatched again there in 2022 after years of authorized debate over his potential extradition.
Odebrecht-related scandals have led to the jailing of officers in Peru, Panama, and Ecuador. Probes of corruption by the development large have additionally occurred in international locations akin to Guatemala and Mexico. The corporate has since modified its identify to Novonor.
In 2019, Peru jailed 14 high attorneys whereas they had been investigated for allegations of offering the agency with preferential remedy in public works contracts.
Toledo will serve his sentence in a jail on the outskirts of the Peruvian capital of Lima, specifically constructed to deal with former presidents.
He might quickly have further firm.
Two extra ex-presidents, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Ollanta Humala, are beneath investigation in comparable circumstances associated to Odebrecht.
Former President Pedro Castillo can be being detained as he faces expenses of “rebel” after a failed try and dissolve Congress in 2022.
