A court has sentenced former Peru President Alejandro Toledo, aged 78 to 20 years and six months in jail for corruption and money laundering.

According to prosecutors, Toledo took $35m (£27m) in bribes from a Brazilian construction company that was awarded a contract to build a road in southern Peru.

He held the office between 2001 and 2006.

He was arrested five years ago in California, where he had lived and worked for many years, and extradited to Peru last year.

The Brazilian company Odebrecht admitted paying millions of dollars in bribes to officials across Latin America and the US to secure government contracts.

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Judge Inés Rojas said Peruvians had “trusted” Toledo as their president, “in charge of managing public finances” and responsible for “protecting and ensuring the correct” use of resources.

Instead, she was quoted as saying by the Associated Press he had “defrauded the state”.

Toledo has denied the allegations against him and frequently smirked and at times laughed on Monday, especially when the judge was speaking on Monday, the news agency notes.