07/10/2020 - 1:04
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Natalia Mercado, niece of Cristina Kirchner, will continue as prosecutor in the case for the crime of Fabián Gutiérrez, who was secretary to the former President. Judge Carlos Narvarte confirmed late Thursday that he did not give rise to the challenge presented by the defense.
The news came to light at the end of a long day at the El Calafate judicial headquarters, where the detainee Agustín Zaeta declared , plus witnesses provided by the complaint.
The main expectation was placed in the response to the request to remove Mercado presented by Carlos Muriete, lawyer for the brothers Facundo and Agustín Zaeta, two of the four detainees. The request pointed to the family situation of the prosecutor, daughter of the current governor of Santa Cruz, Alicia Kirchner, and Cristina's niece.
Upon leaving the courthouse, around 11:30 pm, Narvarte stated that he rejected the challenge. In dialogue with Señal Calafate, he stated that the causes invoked by the defense to try to displace the prosecutor "did not prove them." And he stressed that challenging a prosecutor for being "the niece" of the current vice president "is not enough."
"There is no political issue," said the judge, referring to Gutiérrez's murder.
On Saturday, shortly after the body of the former Kirchner secretary was found buried in a house in Santa Cruz, the opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio had asked for the removal of the prosecutor and that the investigation go to the Federal Justice field. .
In a statement that generated a boil within the PRO, the space described the murder as "a crime of the greatest institutional gravity" and spoke of the "possible connection" of Gutiérrez's death with "federal crimes".
Cristina's former private secretary was a repentant witness in the case of the bribery notebooks, a mega-investigation for corruption during Kirchnerism.
In his statements before the Justice, he linked the former president with the bribery collection scheme , for the bags that Roberto Baratta collected with the driver Oscar Centeno. Gutiérrez stated that he made trips to El Calafate and Río Gallegos to transport suitcases and bags, which he believed contained money and that they had as their final destination the Kirchner house in the South.
Fabián Gutiérrez, ex-secretary of Cristina Kirchner. They assassinated him in El Calafate. Photo Télam
New testimonials
For the complaint, the investigation for the Gutiérrez crime is "at a key moment." Lawyers Sandro Levin and Gabriel Giordano, representatives of the victim's family, thus defined the progress in the case after the statements made on Thursday in the Court of Instruction of El Calafate.
Levin explained that on the day "two testimonials and the statement of Agustín Zaeta were carried out." And he added: "One of the witnesses was proposed by the complaint and other witnesses and an expert witness, a criminologist, have been proposed," to carry out their own autopsy analysis, the final report of which is not yet in the hands of the judge.
Giordano, for his part, said that a presentation was made related to the "motive" for the murder.
"We are satisfied with the attitude of the court, everything we have is corroborating our theory," he said. And he returned to remove political tint to the cause by pointing to an economic issue as the reason for the murder.
Gutiérrez's family believes that the four detained youths participated in the murder and that they committed the crime "to hide a robbery."
Report by Nicolás Revello, from Santa Cruz
LP
