Former Ecuadorian president imprisoned for corruption

Notably, a former president of Ecuador has been sentenced to five years in prison after being discovered guilty of taking bribes.

Key points

• Moreno, who was president between 2017 and 2021, is the third former Ecuadorian leader to be sentenced for corruption.
• The Ecuadorian administration rolled out legal proceedings against Sinohydro in 2021 due to cracks appearing in the dam and other technical failures.
• Lenín Moreno insisted he had not taken funds from a Chinese firm which secured a contract to build a hydroelectric plant in the Latin American nation.
• As well as former plant managers, Sinohydro representatives and a Chinese ambassador to Ecuador, among those handed prison sentences were Moreno's wife, daughter and brother.
• The BBC has approached Sinohydro and the Chinese embassy in Ecuador for comment.

Meanwhile, the 73-year-old will serve his sentence under house arrest due to his age and disability, and has already indicated his intention to appeal against the verdict after a court in the capital, Quito, discovered him and 19 others guilty of corruption.

Prosecutors alleged that that Sinohydro. It is owned by the Chinese state, paid a total of $76.1m (£56.2m) through shell firms to residents involved in the accord to secure the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric dam.

While Moreno himself was alleged to have received particularly little from the scheme, prosecutors stated family members received tens of thousands of dollars.

While Moreno was barred from public office, those convicted of bribery will have to repay three times what they were given.

He denied involvement in the alleged bribery scheme and instead blamed another former president, Rafael Correa, under whom he served as vice-president and who was sentenced to eight years in prison in a separate bribery case in 2020.

Moreno argued that Correa had signed off on the Coca Codo Sinclair project, and that he had introduced an investigation into matters with the construction when he had assumed the presidency.

In practice, the Ecuadorian administration rolled out legal proceedings against Sinohydro in 2021 due to cracks appearing in the dam and other technical failures. It reached a $400m settlement with the firm's owner earlier this year.

Notably, the BBC has approached Sinohydro and the Chinese embassy in Ecuador for comment.

In short, former Ecuadorian president imprisoned for corruption is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.