Lucia Salinas
08/03/2020 - 18:37
- Clarín.com
- Politics
The hearings of the first trial for alleged corruption against the vice president resumed on Monday. In the midst of the debate over the judicial reform that the Government promoted by creating an advisory committee regarding the operation of the Supreme Court of Justice, which is made up of the lawyer Carlos Beraldi -defensor of Cristina Kirchner-, in the Supreme Court there are fourteen appeals related to the case, six of which were presented by the former President's attorney. ANDthat could alter the continuity of the debate.
Of the eight cases brought to oral trial by Cristina Kirchner - six are cases of corruption - only one hearing is taking place, in which she is accused of having been the head of an illicit association that directed the public road work in Santa Cruz to the companies of Lázaro Báez. There were 51 contracts for 46,000 million dollars.
The case in charge of the Federal Oral Court 2 (TOF 2), the investigative stage ended months ago with the statement of the vice president. There, for more than three hours, he maintained that the file lacked the legal basis to accuse her, referred to lawfare and argued that everything responds to political persecution to discredit her as a leader. She accused the Justice of being an instrument and executing arm of that mechanism.
The file, on the other hand, maintains that a "corruption maneuver" was established from the Government and state agencies linked to public works, with whom "a criminal organization" was set up for the "subtraction of public funds through discretionary allocation practically 80% of road works, with 65% surcharges in favor "of Báez. According to the prosecution's accusation, everything was commanded by the vice president, and these maneuvers " led to fraud to the detriment of the State and money laundering ."
Of the main charges, the vice president defended herself and tried to delay with various resources that reached the Supreme Court of Justice. In total there are fifteen complaints in the Court related to this case, and six of them were presented by Carlos Beraldi, who will now give his opinion on the operation of the Supreme Court as a member of the Advisory Council that Alberto Fernández convened.
Almost half of the claims that went to the Court against the trial for road works. These are resources CFP 5048/2016 / TO1 / 14; CFP 5048/2016 / TO1 / 22; CFP 5048/2016 / TO1 / 21; CFP 5048/2016 / TO1 / 25; CFP 5048/2016 / TO1 / 27 and CFP 5048/2016 / TO1 / 34. According to sources in the case, if these resources advance in the Court "they could be decisive in the continuity of the trial and the time of the same."
In order to refute the accusation about the economic concentration of public works in favor of Báez, the defense of Cristina Kirchner had required an expertise of all public works in all provinces , to know whether "there were or not surcharges in the works, they were presented or not constructive deficiencies and whether or not the deadlines established in the bidding specifications were met ".
In response to this request, the TOF 2 authorized an expert opinion on five witness cases of works assigned by Báez and which, on the part of the official experts, reported overpricing of between 170 and 200 million dollars. They also determined that businessman K did not have the technical capacity to win the contracts, and that these works were not completed. The expert witness from the vice president ruled otherwise on all points .
The claim to expand that expertise is in the Court, and if it authorizes the inclusion of a greater number of tenders, the trial that began in May 2019 would be delayed. Another claim is the challenge to one of the experts . To this they add three other resources to complain about evidence produced.
The defense of the vice president raised in various instances that they are before a double judgment when saying that this fact has already been investigated and dismissed by the Santa Cruz justice system, "here (by TOF 2) we were told that it was not the same when we raised it , and you judges become the battering rams of the scourge that is to identify politics with corruption, "said Cristina in her investigation. The complaint is central and the judges carefully observe how the Supreme Court will pronounce, since it could be determining in the continuity of the case.
Chamber IV of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation rejected other requests from the former president that enabled the start of the trial. In them, he asked that the case be sent to Santa Cruz because the investigated events occurred there, since there was already a file with similar characteristics in Río Gallegos. For the defense, another Chamber of that court must intervene.
Among the resources that the Court must analyze is one formulated by various defenses on the jurisdiction of the Cassation Chamber, since there were two rooms, I and IV, that intervened in different incidents related to the case.
