New York, May 23 (IANS/EFE) Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo has been sentenced here to five years and 10 months behind bars for money laundering, federal prosecutors said.
Besides the jail time ordered Thursday, Portillo will have to return the $2.5 million he accepted as a bribe from the government of Taiwan so that Guatemala would maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei. He will also have to pay a fine of up to $500,000.
Portillo was extradited to New York in May 2013 from Guatemala to face charges of conspiring to launder money he obtained illegally during his 2000-2004 mandate.
Having initially denied the accusations, he entered a guilty plea in March after reaching an agreement with prosecutors.
Portillo laundered the bribe money through U.S. and European banks.
The plea agreement allowed him to avoid what could have been a 20-year prison term.
Portillo, 62, had received the money from Taiwan between December 1999 -- weeks before he assumed the presidency -- and August 2002. The $2.5 million was paid to him through five cheques.
Of the money, $1.5 million were deposited in accounts that Portillo, his wife and daughter had in Spain's BBVA bank in Paris and part of that money was later laundered through banks in Switzerland, Luxembourg and other places.
--IANS/EFE
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