Former Ecuadorian president Lenín Moreno sentenced to five years for corruption

A court in Quito found former Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno guilty of accepting bribes related to the construction of a hydroelectric dam financed by a Chinese company. The 73-year-old will serve his sentence under house arrest and has announced his intention to appeal.

Lenín Moreno, president of Ecuador from 2017 to 2021, has been sentenced to five years in prison by a court in the capital, Quito. He becomes the third former Ecuadorian leader to be sanctioned for corruption. His sentence will be served at home due to his age and disability.

The court also convicted nineteen other people, including Moreno's wife, daughter and brother, former power plant managers, representatives of the Chinese company Sinohydro and a former Chinese ambassador to Ecuador.

The case concerns the Coca Codo Sinclair dam. According to prosecutors, Sinohydro, a Chinese state-owned company, allegedly paid a total of $76,1 million through shell companies to various parties involved in awarding the construction contract. Moreno himself reportedly received only a modest sum, but members of his family allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars. Those convicted of corruption will have to repay three times the amount they received, and Moreno is barred from holding any public office.

The former president denied any involvement and implicated his predecessor, Rafael Correa, under whom he had served as vice president. He pointed out that it was Correa who had approved the Coca-Cola-Sinclair project and that he himself had launched an investigation into the project's shortcomings after becoming president. Correa was sentenced in 2020 to eight years in prison in a separate corruption case.

The Ecuadorian government filed a lawsuit against Sinohydro in 2021 after cracks appeared in the dam and other technical failures were discovered. A $400 million settlement was reached with the company's parent company earlier this year.