Ecuador’s former president sentenced to five years for bribery

Lenín Moreno has been sentenced to five years in prison for bribery, but Ecuador’s former president insists he never received money from Sinohydro, the Chinese state-owned company linked to the case.

A court in Quito found Moreno and 19 other people guilty over alleged payments connected to the contract to build the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric dam. Moreno, 73, will serve the sentence under house arrest because of his age and disability. He has announced plans to appeal the ruling.

Prosecutors alleged that Sinohydro paid $76.1 million through shell companies to people involved in securing the contract. Moreno was accused of receiving only a very small amount from the scheme, while prosecutors said members of his family received tens of thousands of dollars. Those convicted of bribery must repay three times the amount they received, and Moreno has been barred from holding public office.

Moreno’s wife, daughter and brother were among those sentenced, along with the former plant manager, Sinohydro representatives and a Chinese ambassador to Ecuador. Prosecutors had sought a six-and-a-half-year sentence for the former president.

Moreno served as president from 2017 to 2021 and became Ecuador’s third former president to be sentenced for corruption. He succeeded Rafael Correa, who initially supported him, but later fell out with his former mentor after Moreno moved politically to the right and developed closer ties with the United States. Moreno, who is paralyzed from the waist down and previously served as a United Nations special envoy on disability issues, said after the ruling that he had never received a single cent from Sinohydro.

“

I never received a single cent from Sinohydro.