Former President of Peru Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Corruption

lima - Alejandro Toledo, the former President of Peru, has been sentenced to over 20 years in prison for accepting bribes from a Brazilian construction company.

Alejandro Toledo, who served as President of Peru between 2001 and 2006, was found guilty of receiving 35 million dollars (over 32 million euros) from the Brazilian company Odebrecht, now known as Novonor. In exchange for the money, the company was allowed to construct a highway between Peru and Brazil.

Odebrecht was at the center of one of the largest corruption scandals in the history of Latin America, allegedly bribing presidents, former presidents, and other government officials in at least twelve countries.

The former President of Peru had been living in the U.S. for years and was arrested in 2019 on corruption charges. He was extradited to Peru last year and maintained his innocence throughout the trial in his home country. Last week, he pleaded with the judges to serve any potential sentence at home due to his battle with cancer, saying, "Please let me recover or die at home."

While Toledo is the first former President of Peru to be convicted in the Odebrecht corruption scandal, previous charges have been brought against other former presidents of the country. Former President Alan García took his own life in 2019 when the police attempted to arrest him in connection with the corruption probe.

In Peru, a special prison has been constructed for former heads of government, where at one point, three former heads of state were incarcerated simultaneously.