A Guatemalan court on Wednesday sentenced former president Otto Perez Molina to eight years in prison, adding to convictions that already landed him in jail, Report informs via Barron’s.
Perez, 72, who served as president 2012-2015, admitted guilt to fraud, money laundering, and corruption, and a judge in turn reduced his initial 16-year sentence by half.
The court ordered Perez to pay a fine of more than $3 million.
According to the conviction, Perez and his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, were part of an illegal structure that received millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for awarding more than 70 contracts to various companies.
Baldetti has already been convicted in two other corruption cases, including one involving the customs service. In that case, Perez Molina was sentenced in December to 16 years in prison, a jail term now cut by half.
The former army general resigned from the Guatemalan presidency on September 3, 2015, amid massive demonstrations against corruption in his government. He was jailed the same day.
The corruption was exposed by the UN Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, which the government disbanded in 2019 after 12 years of operation, generating criticism by the United States and European Union that the Central American nation was backsliding in its commitment to good governance.