Any. In three years, the newspapers aligned with the macrismo did not publish not a note on the trial of the Santa Cruz routes. The reason: hearing following hearing the accusation was receiving catastrophic beatings. Even the prosecution’s own witnesses declared once morest him. Now, those same media extensively covered the allegation of the prosecutors that borders on the unusual: they might not resort to anything from the trial itself. Almost all of their arguments come from other files that the judges authorized them to use on the last day of the trial, that is, they were never discussed in the hearings.
Even so, they are arguments that they don’t show anything. They used them to make media noise. The prosecutors were not even deprived of making huge blunders by mistaking evidence as beginners. For example, they said that 17 works were not voted by the National Congress without realizing that they were voted, but with another name, the latter granted by the Congress Budget Commission. Or they were planted on provincial route 288 in which an embankment was budgeted and they wondered “Where is the embankment? Is there no elevation here?” The reality is that in plains like the Patagonian ones, the embankment is built underground because the elevations cause flooding and, for example, cattle might drown.
Nothing matters. After the defeat in each of the hearings since May 2019, Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola only concentrated on producing smoke, a little game for the tribune, trying to present the evidence already demolished in the trial as brand new.
The illicit association trick
The entire media show will derive this Monday in the conviction requests that, as already anticipated, will be high and for the two crimes at stake: illicit association and fraud to the state. The illicit association, it is known, is the trick that is used when there is no evidence to link people to the crime and then it is argued that belonging to the gang is the crime in itself. It was created to be able to convict members of trade unions or guerrilla organizations, even if they had not committed any crime.
Even so, with Cristina Kirchner and also with Julio De Vido they have a serious problem. They do not appear signing any resolution, any decree, there is no email or WhatsApp where they give an instruction or an order that favors Lázaro Báez.
The only thing that the Luciani-Mola duo put forward –taken from the case in which José López was convicted for the nine million dollars he threw at the General Rodríguez convent– are two (2) messages in which López tells him to a Báez manager who will talk to CFK regarding a matter of payments to Austral Construcciones. One message is from 2014 and the other in 2015 from López and a CFK secretary, that is, there is not even something from Cristina herself. And, for its part, there are records of two apparent meetings between Báez and CFK in Olivos, both in 2010. That is the curious “proof” of an “illicit association.”
Voted for by Congress, controlled by the province
The execution of the works was voted, in all cases, by the National Congress, in the Budget laws. The tenders were made by the province of Santa Cruz, which also awarded the works and exercised control. In other words, the national government -CFK or Julio De Vido- never had any decisive intervention. And, according to the audit ordered by the macrismo itself, nothing was paid for that had not been built and what was built was of good quality.
Part of the works were abandoned because the government of Mauricio Macri canceled all the financing, so that the construction companies – Báez’s and most of the others – had to stop the work. The same did not happen in 2019 when the Frente de Todos took over: the works continued.
The prosecutors said that the deputies and senators voted for most of the works, but that they did not send them all the information. That is, the legislators were inept and passed over them. It must be taken into account that all the members of Congress fight for the works for their provinces, so they give great importance to the budget laws. But, furthermore, once the period has elapsed, what is called an Investment Account is voted on, which is the approval of what was done with the funds. All revisions from Cristina’s time were approved by Congress.
When he depended on the national government, Báez did not win
Several businessmen testified during the trial, including Macri’s cousin, Angelo Calcaterra. They all maintained that there were no irregularities and that Báez won because he had all the personnel and all the machinery available and having been the general manager of the Banco de Santa Cruz, he played very much at home in the province. The same thing happens in numerous districts, where a company accumulates something similar to 80 percent of the works: it happens in Jujuy, San Juan and Misiones, among others.
In Santa Cruz not only routes were made. There was also a huge budget for electrical works. The tenders were made nationally, not in Santa Cruz, but under the same government, here in Buenos Aires, and governed by the same “illicit association”, Báez did not win any work, among other things because he did not have the appropriate machinery.
It also lost the most important tender in the history of Santa Cruz, referring to the Jorge Cepernik and Néstor Kirchner power plants. In that contest he was associated with cousin Angelo, the man from the Macri Group.
Prosecutors, 3 years from paper to paper
Throughout the trial, the poor original investigation -without even an expertise- and the disastrous preparation of Luciani-Mola were evidenced. Page 12 published no fewer than 50 notes on the hearings, while the media aligned with the macrismo hid the paper.
As it was sung, also in the allegations the prosecutors committed authentic bloopers.
- there is no embankment. The geographer, specialized in road works, Guillermo Sordo, reflected the grotesqueness of a presentation by Luciani on provincial route 288. He exhibited photographs of a technician –the prosecutors never went to the works– and maintained that the budgeted embankment was never done because no elevation was visible. Deaf -reflected by journalists Ariel Zak and Juan Amorín-, had to explain to the prosecutor that in a plain the embankment is not made by elevation, but rather goes underground. If it were some kind of mountain, it would cause flooding, livestock deaths, and lawsuits once morest the state. “A box is dug to put the foundations,” Sordo synthesized in dialogue with Page 12. “It is obvious that you cannot put asphalt on land. Underneath it has that compaction that prevents the water from filtering and a depression is produced. Trucks pass by.” Luciani’s conclusion was that the embankment was not done and, therefore, there were overprices.
- Congress did not authorize. Luciani pompously announced that he had discovered that part of the works -17- were never voted on by the National Congress. For example, Provincial Route 25 does not appear with that name in the budget, but was voted on in the so-called “Item 5, transfers to provincial institutions.” Within subsection 5 it appears effectively as Provincial Route 25.
- Baez’s will: As happens with the other pieces of evidence improvised into the allegation, Luciani wanted to imply that the Báez properties belong to the Kirchners. The analysis of that document was made at the time by Judge Sebastián Casanello in the case of La Ruta del Dinero. The beneficiaries of the will are the four children of the builder, but it has a clause that prevents them from dividing the assets for 30 years. The objective is to avoid fights between the children and to maintain the company and the assets as a unit. But it does not mean that Báez cannot dispose of the assets or that the assets belong to another. It is a common clause in business wills.
- Hotels: Luciani-Mola used in the allegation that Lázaro Báez and Néstor Kirchner had commercial relations. It is public and notorious. With blank contracts, deeds and bank transfers. And that Valle Mitre, from Lázaro Báez, paid the Kirchner family the monthly rent for the Alto Calafate hotel. According to the defense exercised in that case -already in 2015- it was the market value and a calculation made by this newspaper, implied regarding 129 pesos for each of the 103 rooms. At that time, there were rooms that were rented for 1,600 pesos. The Kirchners have been dedicated to renting properties since before Néstor Kirchner had his first position: mayor of Río Gallegos.
Before handling the best-known judicial files of Comodoro Py, the same judge, Julián Ercolini, held in another case that a president can maintain his commercial activity. It was in relation to a contract between the Kirchner family and an important public works contractor, now deceased, Juan Carlos Relats. The subject motivates many controversies worldwide, for example, when Donald Trump carried out official activities in his resorts and hotels.
A front trial
As can be seen, the prosecutors went fishing in other files because they might not obtain evidence in this trial. And those that they exhibited were refuted in the hearings with the testimony of businessmen, former officials, current officials. The accountants of the prosecutors and the defenses signed a unanimous expert opinion that there were no surcharges and the engineers disagreed with each other on that issue, although those who ruled the existence of surcharges made water in the hearings. The issue should have been resolved with more testimonies from experts to determine which was the correct methodology.
The concrete thing is that Luciani-Mola had to bring evidence of other causes because there was no way to fit CFK into the scheme. In the Frente de Todos they say that everything is already digitized: they play soccer together, they went to visit Casa Rosada and, as it happens in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, what governs is the use of justice for political persecution. What the prosecutor says does not exist: lawfare. Suffice it to say that what the Oral Court decides will be reviewed by judges who went to play paddle tennis in Olivos or regularly visited the Casa Rosa. In other words, everything indicates that the trial was just a facade and they have the package tied.
