A Peruvian court sentenced former President Alejandro Toledo to 20 years and six months in prison for corruption and money laundering.
Prosecutors say he took $35m (£27m) in bribes from a Brazilian construction company that 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 lived and worked for many years, and was sent to Peru last year.
Brazilian company Odebrecht has admitted that it paid millions of dollars in bribes to officials across Latin America and the US to get government contracts.
Judge Inés Rojas said that Peruvians “trust” Toledo as their president, who is “in charge of managing public funds” and is responsible for “protecting and ensuring the proper use” of resources.
Instead, he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press, “he defrauded the state”.
Toledo denies the allegations against him and on Monday he was smiling and sometimes laughing, especially when the judge spoke on Monday, the news agency said.
In 2019, another one the former president of Peru, Alan García, shot himself when the police came to his house to arrest him for bribery allegations involving Odebrecht, which has changed its name to Nononor.
Two other former presidents of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Ollanta Humala, are also being investigated in the Odebrecht case.
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