Ecuador’s AG seeks a 6 year prison term for Lenin Moreno!
Ecuador
Guayaquil, Ecuador, July 8 (EFE).-
Ecuador’s Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday requested a six-year, six-month prison sentence for former President Lenin Moreno, alleging that he received bribes from the Chinese state-owned company Sinohydro for the construction of the country’s largest hydroelectric plant when he was vice president under Rafael Correa.
This potential sentence is also being sought by Attorney General Carlos Alarcón for Moreno’s wife Rocío González, their daughter Irina Moreno and 17 other defendants, including former Chinese ambassador Cai Runguo.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, the former president and his family allegedly received more than $1 million out of a total of $76 million in bribes that Sinohydro supposedly paid for the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant, with a capacity of up to 1,500 megawatts in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
The trial began almost two months ago against 21 people, but on Wednesday, Judge Alarcón told the court that he was withdrawing the charges against one of the defendants accused of being an accomplice.
The Sinohydro case broke in 2019 when the news website La Fuente published an investigation implicating one of Moreno’s brothers in alleged accounts in tax havens and a luxury property in Alicante, Spain, in an apparent scheme involving a shell company.
That report revealed a series of connections and alleged irregularities linking Moreno to the offshore company INA Investment, which led to an initial investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office into alleged bribes received while he was vice president of Ecuador.
Moreno allegedly received a total of $660,000 illicitly, of which $220,000 went to himself and his wife, supposedly in the form of a house and furnishings, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
Another $440,000 was apparently destined for Moreno’s brothers: Edwin ($350,000) and Guillermo ($10,000), his daughter Irina ($50,000), his sisters-in-law Jacqueline ($10,000) and Martha ($15,000), and his mother-in-law Aída Graciela ($5,000).
In addition to prison sentences, the prosecutor asked the court to bar them from holding public office or having contractual ties with the State, suspend their political rights, and impose a fine and order them to pay full reparations.
He also requested that they issue a public apology and that an “anti-corruption meeting” be established at the hydroelectric complex.
The trial is scheduled to be suspended until tomorrow after the closing arguments from the Attorney General’s Office and some of the defense attorneys, in a hearing attended in person by former president Moreno. The court will then deliberate on the prosecutor’s request. EFE
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