Former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo was in court for his sentencing

Lima (AFP) - A Peruvian court on Monday sentenced former president Alejandro Toledo to more than 20 years in prison for accepting multimillion-dollar bribes from scandal-hit Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht.

The Superior Court accepted the prison term recommended by the prosecution, it announced at a hearing attended by the 78-year-old, who led the South American nation from 2001 to 2006.

Toledo, who says he has cancer and heart problems, appeared calm as he was found guilty of collusion and money laundering for having received $35 million from Odebrecht.

The court found that he had accepted bribes in exchange for tenders to build two sections of an international highway linking the Pacific coast of Peru and the Atlantic coast of Brazil.

Toledo was extradited last year from the United States, where he had been living for several years before surrendering at a federal court building in California.

Odebrecht, which has since changed its name to Novonor, has admitted to paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes throughout Latin America to secure huge public works contracts.

Toledo is one of several Peruvian presidents implicated in a massive investigation targeting the group, which acknowledged paying millions in bribes to Peruvian officials between 2005 and 2014.

Two-term leader Alan Garcia committed suicide in 2019 when police came to his house to arrest him.

In 2018, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski became the first Latin American president to resign over alleged connections to the Odebrecht scandal.