LIMA — A court in Peru has sentenced former President Alejandro Toledo to 20 years and six months in jail for corruption and money-laundering.

Prosecutors say he took $35m (£27m) in bribes from a Brazilian construction company which was awarded a contract to build a road in southern Peru.

Toledo, 78, was in office between 2001 and 2006.

He was arrested five years ago in California, where he had lived and worked for many years, and extradited to Peru last year.

The Brazilian company Odebrecht admitted paying millions of dollars in bribes to officials across Latin America and the US to secure government contracts.

Judge Inés Rojas said Peruvians had “trusted” Toledo as their president, “in charge of managing public finances” and responsible for “protecting and ensuring the correct” use of resources.

Instead, she was quoted as saying by the Associated Press, he had “defrauded the state”.

Toledo has denied the allegations against him and on Monday frequently smirked and at times laughed, especially when the judge was speaking on Monday, the news agency notes.

In 2019, another former Peruvian president, Alan García, shot himself when police arrived at his home to arrest him over bribery allegations involving Odebrecht, which has since changed its name to Novonor.

Two other former Peruvian presidents, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Ollanta Humala, are also being investigated in the Odebrecht case. — BBC