The indictment links former President Lenin Moreno to allegations of corruption in connection with the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project.
An Ecuadorian judge has approved a prosecutors’ request to indict former President Lenin Moreno with corruption in connection with a contract for a Chinese-built hydroelectric plant in the South American nation.
The indictment, which includes 37 people in total, links Moreno to work on the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project and states that the defendants received bribes of up to $76 million as part of a corruption scheme that worked between 2009 and 2018.
Moreno, who served part of that time as vice president under the government of Rafael Correa, denied wrongdoing last month, saying he had no responsibility for the contracting of the works of the complex.
After Sunday’s hearing, Moreno tweeted that some of the arguments made by the attorney general’s office were “arbitrary and inhumane.”
Judge Adrian Rojas decided, as a precautionary measure, that Moreno must appear every 15 days before the National Court of Justice.
After the hearing, the attorney general’s office said on its Twitter account that Moreno and the rest of the defendants will be brought to justice “for their alleged participation in the crime of corruption.”
The alleged bribes represented “the highest amount prosecuted for acts of corruption in Ecuador”, the prosecutor’s office added.
Moreno, who served as Ecuador’s president between 2017 and 2021, currently resides in Paraguay and is the Organization of American States (OAS) commissioner for persons with disabilities.
The hydroelectric plant linked to the case was built by the Chinese company Sinohydro at a cost of 2.245 billion dollars.
Ecuador’s Attorney General Diana Salazar said last month that China had not responded to a request for assistance in the case.
Sinohydro did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.