Associated Press:

Videos posted online by US oil company Chevron purporting to show rampant corruption among Ecuadoran officials are actually a set-up meant to taint an ongoing trial against the energy giant, an attorney in the case alleged.

“By releasing the videos, in my opinion Chevron is trying to taint a trial process that they knew they were going to lose, with the hope that the case would be dismissed in Ecuador,” Steven Donziger, an attorney for Ecuadoran Amazon communities who are suing the oil giant told reporters.

Chevron at the end of August released several grainy videos purporting to show “a three-million-dollar bribery scheme implicating the judge presiding over the environmental lawsuit” against the US oil major.

The Ecuadorans allege that Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon.

But a report released Thursday by the Amazon Defense Coalition found that one of the individuals said to have produced the videos was a convicted felon with “a habit of breaking the law” and with longstanding ties to the oil company.

Here is Amazon Defense Council’s Report: