Peru ex-President Toledo sentenced to two decades in prison for accepting bribes

Peru’s former President Alejandro Toledo appears in court in Lima

LIMA (Reuters) – Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo was convicted and sentenced to 20 years and six months behind bars on Monday for taking bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

The guilty verdict and two-decade prison sentence marks Peru’s first high-profile conviction related to Brazil’s Lava Jato corruption scandal.

Toledo, who governed between 2001 and 2006, received $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht, now known as Novonor, according to authorities, in exchange for letting the company win the construction of a road that currently connects the southern coast of Peru with an Amazonian area in western Brazil.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino)