A prosecutor asked this Monday that the vice president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchnerto 12 years in prison, considering her the “chief” of a plot of “systematic corruption” around public works that caused a millionaire damage to the State.
“This is probably the largest corruption maneuver that has ever been known in the country,” said prosecutor Diego Luciani in his final argument in the trial that has been going on since May 2019 for the so-called “road cause.”
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According to the attorney, Kirchnerwho governed Argentina between 2007 and 2015, was the “head” of an illicit association made up of “high-ranking” public officials – for whom the prosecutor also requested various penalties – and who acted for the “profit and the greed”.
In addition to asking that Cristina Kirchner goes to prison for the alleged crime of illicit association and fraudulent administration of public funds, Luciani requested that she be disqualified in perpetuity from holding public office.
He also requested that assets of the defendants worth 5,231 million pesos (36.4 million dollars) be confiscated, a figure that, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, reached the fraud orchestrated by this “illicit association.”
SYSTEMATIC CORRUPTION
In this process, the alleged irregularities in the concession of 51 public works to firms of businessman Lázaro Báez during the governments of the late Néstor are judged. Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015) in the southern province of Santa Cruz.
“These were systematic acts of corruption, promoted and maintained by the country’s top political leaders, which destroyed all the principles of public procurement and caused serious damage to the state coffers,” said the prosecutor.
According to Luciani, there was on the part of the now vice president a “departure from any type of scruple to achieve the ambitious motive” and a “contempt for the citizenry in general by using funds that should have been allocated to a social utility for personal benefit.”
THE GOVERNMENT DEFENDS THE VICE PRESIDENT
The prosecutor questioned the Argentine president, Alberto Kirchnerto say, when testifying in this trial, that the public policy regarding hiring cannot be reviewed by the Justice.
“Evidently, to puerilely defend his running mate, he tried to shift the focus of the issue and avoided talking regarding the seriousness of the facts verified here and the serious damage caused to the State,” he said.
After the prosecutor’s plea, the government released a statement in which it showed its support for the vice president in the face of the “judicial persecution” once morest her and stated that “none of the acts attributed to the former president has been proven.”
On a personal note, Albert Kirchner expressed his “deepest affection and solidarity” to the vice president, who maintains open differences with the head of state.
Other leaders of the pro-government front, such as Economy Minister Sergio Massa, also questioned the prosecutor’s allegation.
Meanwhile, opposition leaders came out to support the actions of the Justice, while a group of protesters gathered at the gates of the building where the vice president resides in Buenos Aires to celebrate the request for the conviction of the former president.
REJECTION OF THE REQUEST OF THE DEFENSE
At the conclusion of Luciani’s argument, the defense attorney for Cristina KirchnerCarlos Beraldi, asked the court to grant the vice president the possibility of expanding her preliminary statement.
But the judges rejected the request, so the arguments of the defenses will begin on September 5.
“If something was missing to confirm that I am not before a court of the Constitution, but before a media-judicial firing squad, it is to prevent me from exercising the right of defense before questions that never appeared in the act of accusation of the prosecutor that I attended during five days in May 2019,” said the vice president on her Twitter account.
He anticipated that this Tuesday, through social networks, he will demonstrate why “they are prohibiting him from speaking in the trial following the obscene script” of the Prosecutor’s Office.
Cristina Kirchnerwho in recent years has avoided requests for preventive detention issued once morest him in various cases – in many of which he was dismissed – thanks to the privileges that protect him, has always defended his innocence and has claimed to be the target of persecution politics.
In the event that she is convicted, the 69-year-old vice president, who in principle enjoys privileges until December 2023, will have the right to appeal the sentence to higher courts.