Lucia Salinas
04/13/2021 18:32
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 04/13/2021 6:51 PM
In June, José López will serve five years in detention, since the police found him in the General Rodríguez convent at dawn in June 2016, seeking to hide bags with nine million dollars.
He had requested access to temporary exits in the case where he was convicted of illicit enrichment, but the Federal Oral Court 1 rejected his request.
Then he made another request:
that he be released for having served two-thirds of his sentence
, despite the fact that it has not yet been confirmed.
Prosecutor Miguel Ángel Osorio understood that he should be granted freedom, and this Tuesday, by majority vote, the TOF granted the request, with one condition:
that López deposit a guarantee of 85 million pesos.
In June 2019, the members of TOF 1,
Ricardo Basílica, Adrián Grünberg and José Michilini
had found him responsible for the crime of illicit enrichment, disbelieving his claim that he claimed that the money he sought to hide in a convent in the early morning of that 14 June did not belong to him.
They sentenced him to six years in prison.
The sentence is not final: the Chamber of Cassation called a hearing for next April 14, and then it will have twenty days to decide whether or not to confirm the sentence.
When they denied temporary exits to former civil servant K, the judges said that "López does not meet the temporary requirement to access the requested freedom and, even in the best of the hypotheses, he would not reach it even if the defense was right in his case. discount in concept of intended educational stimulus ".
But now he has requested a release under the terms of probation - in cases of people sentenced with a non-final sentence.
After requesting a set of reports, the prosecutor Osorio understood that
"there would be no other possible solution other than to give a favorable opinion on the petition, despite which I will request that a strong real surety be applied."
Although the sentence is not final, judicial sources explained to
Clarín
that "it would be an advance of voluntary execution of the sentence, and could have the same benefits as a convicted person with a final sentence."
The situation is complicated at one point: López is repentant and an accused collaborator in the case of the Cuadernos de las Bribes, where he added several prosecutions and was sent to oral proceedings along with Julio De Vido and Cristina Kirchner, among others.
Therefore, if at any time temporary exits were allowed, it
would be necessary to organize the monitoring and protection of their safety.
The former official is now facing a second trial, which he shares with the vice president for the alleged
directing of public works in favor of Lázaro Báez
, but remains imprisoned in the cause that led to his first conviction: the case of bags with 9 million of dollars.
The early morning image of June 14, 2016 showed a desperate José López trying to hide several
bags with almost 9 million dollars
, 153,000 euros, 59,000 pesos
in a General Rodríguez convent
;
Rolex watches, jewelry valued at 452,000 pesos and weapons.
That same day he was ordered to preventive detention.
Those kidnapped assets and money were confiscated, and later they were allocated in equal parts to the Garrahan Pediatric Hospital and the Gutiérrez Children's Hospital.
A house in Dique Luján was also seized, valued at $ 480,000: former official K maintained that he was renting it but the Justice maintained that he sought to hide the ownership of the property.
In an even smaller space than the one he had within the Ezeiza Prison, López is monitored by the program of protected witnesses and defendants.
In an austere accommodation, he receives few visits and goes through the days with few activities: there is no space to move too much and that makes the options are limited.
He does not complain, does not ask for anything outside of the requirements expressed in the writings of his official defender.
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