New York, October 29 (RHC)-- A key witness in Chevron’s effort to avoid paying for environmental contamination in the Ecuadorean Amazon has admitted he lied.

In 2011, a group of indigenous plaintiffs won a landmark $9 billion judgment for widespread contamination from toxic dumping by Texaco, which Chevron later bought. But last year, in a victory for Chevron, a U.S. judge ruled the plaintiffs used "corrupt means" to win.

Much of Chevron’s defense rested on former Ecuadorean Judge Alberto Guerra, who claimed the plaintiffs offered him a $300,000 bribe to ghostwrite the ruling in their favor. But newly released documents from a secret tribunal in Washington show Guerra repudiated many of his allegations and admitted to lying about the bribe. 

The group Amazon Watch said in a statement: "Guerra has so thoroughly perjured himself he should be behind bars. And so should Chevron management."