Alejandro Alfie
07/14/2020 - 13:55
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Like Silvia Majdalani did yesterday, Gustavo Arribas rejected the accusations of "illegal espionage", in his investigative statement before federal judge Juan Pablo Auge. The former head of the Macrist Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) maintained that the observation tasks on the Patria Institute and Cristina Kirchner's home were legal prevention activities, in the face of possible "anti-systemic activities"; and stated that the case must be substantiated in Comodoro Py, since the facts investigated occurred in the city of Buenos Aires, where they were already dismissed for this same matter in 2018. However, unlike the former "Lady 8" of the AFI Arribas did not challenge prosecutor Cecilia Incardone.
The former "Señor 5" of the macrista AFI arrived at the federal courts of Lomas de Zamora minutes before 9 in the morning and retired after 13, without making statements to the press that was waiting for him on the sidewalk. He was accompanied by his lawyer Alejandro Pérez Chada, who has already represented him in other judicial cases. Arribas declared before the judge Auge and the prosecutor Incardone as accused for having carried out "illicit intelligence tasks" on the Buenos Aires domicile of Cristina Kirchner and the Patria Institute, as well as for having generated "false documentation" to justify this investigation. The judge suspects that, together with Majdalani and the ex-AFI directors, Alan Ruiz and Martín Coste, "they participated in the commission of criminal acts investigated in this case", according to the judicial file.
Sources close to Arribas told Clarín that the former head of the AFI gave an investigative statement, but considers that these facts had already been tried by Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi, in 2018, who resolved his dismissal -and that of Majdalani- by no crime. "They can't get it out of the natural judge," they said near Arribas. And they added: "If there is new evidence, there is still nothing that justifies that these events be judged in Lomas de Zamora, since no event occurred there. Therefore, he presented himself for investigation and gave his version of events, but he has already asked for Judge Auge's inhibition. "
It is that Arribas' lawyer, Pérez Chada, presented a request for "inhibitory" of Judge Auge last week , so that the investigation is substantiated in Comodoro Py. The Federal Chamber raffled the case and it was left to the judge María Eugenia Capuchetti, who decided to certify the case, as requested by the prosecutor Carlos Stornelli. This means that the judge will analyze whether it is appropriate to request that the case return to Comodoro Py or continue to be substantiated in Lomas de Zamora. While that situation is being clarified, Judge Auge gives maximum speed to the case, with the aim of quickly prosecuting the former heads of the Macrist AFI.
Majdalani had asked that the case be re-processed by Martínez de Giorgi, but that federal judge rejected the request and said it was a closed case. It is that now new facts have been added, such as espionage in the home of the then senator Kirchner and covers a longer period of time, with new evidence arising from the massive raids on former AFI agents. For this reason, the Arribas defense directly asked for a new federal judge from the city of Buenos Aires to be drawn to investigate these events.
In the judicial file, Judge Auge assured that the AFI agents "had to observe and watch in the places indicated by Alan Ruiz, in order to detect if things were taken or removed, if there were changes, if bags, backpacks were transported , documentation and / or money, as well as whether these two homes received such objects or carried out these activities, meaning that these tasks were never intended to detect possible attacks or threats against the victim, nor were they carried out within the framework of prevention tasks for the events called G 20 and the Youth Olympic Games, "said Auge, in the file. And he added that the protection function of a former president is not the responsibility of the AFI, since it is a "police task" that should be coordinated with the "agents who were guarding her."
Unlike Majdalani, Arribas did not have permanent contacts with the AFI agents directly involved in the espionage operations on the Patria Institute and Cristina Kirchner's home. In his case, it could be linked to the decision to investigate and to the "production of different ideologically false documents" to give the appearance of legality to the operations carried out in those places, among which were three notes presented to the Bicameral Audit Commission. of the Intelligence Organizations and Activities, the federal court of Martínez de Giorgi and the court of Federico Villena in Lomas de Zamora.
PDL