Ex-Ecuador President Lenin Moreno sentenced to five years imprisonment for bribery

An Ecuadoran court has sentenced former President Lenin Moreno to five years in prison for accepting bribes linked to the construction of the country’s largest hydroelectric dam.

Prosecutors said on Friday that Moreno was among 20 people convicted in the corruption case involving the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project, which was built by Chinese company Sinohydro.

Moreno, who served as Ecuador’s president from 2017 to 2021, was accused of receiving bribes connected to the project.

The alleged corruption took place between 2007 and 2013, when Moreno was vice-president under then-President Rafael Correa, a socialist leader.

He succeeded Correa, with the latter’s backing, but later fell out with his mentor by shifting to the right and aligning himself more closely with the United States.

Moreno has already announced plans to appeal the court’s ruling, which also saw his wife and other relatives sentenced to nearly three years in prison for complicity.

Prosecutors had sought a six-and-a-half-year prison term for Moreno.

The 73-year-old paraplegic, who served as the United Nations special envoy on disability issues, insisted Friday after the ruling that he had never received “a single cent” from Sinohydro.

He blamed the case on “the Correa regime,” saying his former backer-turned-rival, who has also been convicted of corruption but lives in Belgium, “promised to take revenge on me.”

Prosecutors say Sinohydro paid bribes totaling $76 million, around four percent of the cost of the hydroelectric project.

Among those convicted alongside Moreno were two former managers of the power plant.

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