An Ecuadorean court has sentenced the country’s vice-president, Jorge Glas, to six years in jail after finding him guilty of receiving bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in return for handing state contracts to the scandal-ridden firm.
A close ally of ex-president Rafael Correa, Glas served as Correa’s vice-president from 2013 and retained the position under current President Lenin Moreno.
Moreno, who has largely broken from Correa, suspended Glas in August, accusing him of not being a team player. Maria Alejandra Vicuna replaced Glas, serving as acting vice-president.
An Ecuadorean judge in October ordered pre-trial detention for Glas as part of the investigation into Odebrecht.
The public prosecutor’s office accused him of pocketing a roughly $13.5m bribe from Odebrecht via his uncle.
“Glas constructed, with [former Odebrecht executive] Jose Conceicao Santos, the awarding of public contracts in return for payment,” judge Edgar Flores said as he read the decision.
Glas, a 48-year-old electrical engineer, has been accused by senior members of Correa’s government of corruption while serving as strategic sectors minister and vice-president.
His lawyer slammed the decision as “unjust” and vowed to appeal.
Glas’s downfall highlights how fallout from the massive Odebrecht corruption scandal has continued to ripple across South America.
The company, which has admitted to paying bribes to win contracts in a number of countries, has paid $3.5bn in settlements in the United States, Brazil and Switzerland.
Odebrecht allegedly paid $33.5m in bribes to secure contracts in Ecuador. The opposition says Correa’s government was slow to investigate, although he rejects that.
Peru’s president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, also found himself in trouble over previously undisclosed payments he received from Odebrecht a decade ago as a consultant to the company.
Up November, Kuczynski vehemently denied any professional or political ties to Odebrecht even as he wagged his finger at three predecessors facing criminal charges for taking millions in bribes from the company.
But on Wednesday opposition lawmakers revealed documents from Odebrecht showing his financial consulting business, Westfield Capital, received $782,000 in payments between 2004 and 2007 from two consortiums led by Odebrecht.
Making matters worse, several of the payments to Westfield were made when Kuczynski was serving as economy minister or prime minister in the 2001 to 2006 government of President Alejandro Toledo.
There was no indication whether Kuczynski broke any laws with the payments he received.
The 79-year-old former Wall Street investor said in five decades in business he earned his compensation honourably and that as a public official he never favoured any particular business.
“I’m ready to clarify everything that needs to be clarified before congress and the public prosecutor’s office, as I have nothing to hide,” he said.