Lázaro Báez during an oral trial.
(Credit: Judicial Information Center of Argentina).
(CNN Spanish) ––
The Argentine businessman Lázaro Báez left jail after the justice decided to grant him house arrest, but a group of neighbors prevented his entry into the private neighborhood where the arrest must be carried out on Monday night.
The former partner of the Kirchner family left Ezeiza prison on Monday night to comply with house arrest but had to return to jail hours later.
A group of neighbors prevented the entry of the Federal Penitentiary Service vehicle that was transferring Báez to a house in a private neighborhood in the town of Pilar, in the province of Buenos Aires, according to the images broadcast live by the Todo Noticias channel.
With sit-ins, insults and banners against Báez, the neighbors avoided several attempts to enter the house, which would have forced the authorities to return the businessman to the Ezeiza prison until new measures are ordered, according to the official agency Télam .
The construction businessman obtained house arrest on Monday, under electronic monitoring, as ordered by one of the courts that is trying him in a ruling accessed by CNN.
He is tried for alleged laundering of some 55 million dollars and for alleged corruption in public works during the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández, according to the files.
Báez and the current vice president have always denied the accusations.
The businessman was detained with preventive detention in a federal prison since April 2016. According to the laws in Argentina, the maximum term of the measure is up to three years.
The court that granted him house arrest had opposed the benefit but the Federal Court of Cassation granted a defense request.
Báez is tried in two oral and public trials for alleged money laundering and for alleged corruption in public works during the governments of Presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández.
In both processes, he had obtained his release from prison, as in a third pending trial for another case of alleged money laundering, but he has been sentenced to house arrest in a fourth file for alleged laundering.
In all the files, the businessman denies having committed crimes.
His house arrest had been authorized in March this year due to the context of the covid-19 pandemic, since the businessman is a population at risk, according to a report from the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Lazaro Baez
