Former Vice President Boudou could go back to jail 3:51
(CNN Spanish) ––
The Supreme Court of Argentina signed the sentence to 5 years and 10 months in prison of former Vice President Amado Boudou in the Ciccone Calcográfica case.
The former running mate of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2011-2015) had been convicted in 2018 for the crimes of passive bribery and negotiations incompatible with the public function.
Boudou has been in house arrest since April.
Confirmation of his conviction could mean his return to federal prison, one of Boudou's lawyers, Alejandro Rúa, told CNN.
LEE: Former Vice President of Argentina Amado Boudou is sentenced to 5 years and 10 months in prison for the Ciccone case
The court that convicted him held that the former vice president and his accomplices (necessary participants) obtained part of the banknote printer's shares as a bribe to ensure the rescue of the company.
Nicolás Ciccone, one of the owners of the company, was convicted of active bribery.
He always denied the charges, as did Boudou and the rest of the defendants.
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The former vice president's defense said he hopes his client will continue to serve his sentence at his home, along with his wife and two children.
The ruling of the highest court revokes the conditions of his preventive detention.
These conditions must be reassessed by the judge for the execution of the sentence, Daniel Obligado, a member of the court that convicted Boudou for the banknote printing case, as explained by Boudou's defense.
However, the lawyer argued that the defense considers that the conditions that allowed him to access house arrest have not changed.
The mechanism of the appropriation of Ciccone by Amado Boudou 1:28
Boudou's house arrest
In April, and following the defense's request, Obligado granted the benefit to Boudou based on four arguments.
One of them was that the conviction for the Ciccone case, for which he was serving preventive detention, was not final, since the review before the Supreme Court was pending.
This is the last judicial instance in the country.
The judge also supported his decision on three other considerations: that Boudou had good behavior in prison, according to a report from the Federal Penitentiary Service;
that his family (wife and two minor children) are in a state of vulnerability without Boudou's presence at home;
and that the coronavirus pandemic made it necessary to take into account the risks to their health.
Rúa told CNN that of the four conditions, three have not changed.
However, before making a decision on whether the former official should serve his final sentence in prison or continue at his home, the Obligatory judge must ask the opinion of the executing prosecutor, according to the procedure.
They must also count the time that Boudou spent in jail and detained at home.
The times you've been to federal jail
If he returned to a federal prison, it would be the fourth time that the former vice president has been held in prison for this case in the last three years.
Boudou had been arrested on November 3, 2017 by order of a judge in the framework of a case attached to the Ciccone case for alleged illicit association, which has not yet gone to trial.
In mid-January 2018, the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires released him.
But he was arrested again after his conviction in the oral and public trial, in August 2018. At the end of that year, he was released after the appeal of his defense, on the grounds that the sentence was not final.
But, shortly after the Chamber of Cassation confirmed it and the former vice president returned to prison.
In April, he was granted house arrest.
The defenses of Boudou and of several more of those sentenced went to the Court in August 2018. This, after the Court of Cassation rejected their appeals against the sentence of the oral court.
Beloved Boudou condemns Supreme Court