Ecuador Puts Ex-President on Trial for Campaign Finance Fraud

(Bloomberg) -- Former President Rafael Correa goes on trial before Ecuador’s highest court starting Monday on charges of campaign finance fraud and accepting millions of dollars in bribes.

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The former president, who will be tried in absentia as he’s currently living in Belgium with his wife, insists the trial is a witch hunt meant to end his career in politics ahead of next year’s elections. Barred from running for the top office due to term limits, Correa could still run for office as a legislator in the February 2021 nationwide vote, which would give him immunity from prosecution, if the campaign starts before the trial ends.

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The prosecution has charged that Correa ran his political party, Alianza PAIS, like a criminal organization, allegedly channeling millions in payoffs from private companies to illegally fill his campaign coffers.

Glas, vice president under both Correa and Moreno, is already serving a sentence for organizing a scheme to take bribes from Brazil’s Odebrecht SA. The construction giant in 2016 admitted to having set up a vast bribery network that doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to politicians in Latin America and Africa to win construction contracts. https://news.yahoo.com/ecuador-puts-ex-president-trial-090000320.html