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The most uncomfortable trial for Cristina Kirchner advances: the Pact with Iran

2020-12-08T14:22:42.468Z


On December 14 there will be a preliminary hearing, the first step for the case to begin to be judged. It would be in the first half of 2012.


Lucia Salinas

12/08/2020 11:05

  • Clarín.com

  • Politics

Updated 12/08/2020 11:05

Five years ago, the prosecutor Alberto Nisman denounced Cristina for signing the pact with Iran.

After repeated denials, the case was investigated, and on March 5, 2018, the late Judge Claudio Bonadio

sent the case to oral trial.

The Federal Oral Court 8 (TOF 8) has assigned the trial, called a preliminary hearing for December 14.

The case that has the vice president among its main defendants

will have a total of 300 witnesses during the oral debate.

Judicial sources told

Clarín

that they expect the start of the debate for the first half of next year marked by the legislative elections. 

On December 14, the preliminary hearing will be held

, "for the exclusive purpose of ordering the evidence that will be produced during the debate (dates of the hearings, schedules, schedule of witnesses, number of witnesses per hearing, etc.), making known to the parties that, in said hearing, no proposals or exceptions will be admitted outside of that agenda, "reported TOF 8 in September.

Everything is heading to the beginning of the debate that accumulates two years of delay.

This is the trial of greatest international significance against Vice President Cristina Kirchner

.

In this oral trial, the alleged attempt to

cover up the five Iranian defendants accused of having been the intellectual authors of the attack on the AMIA

through the signing of the memorandum of understanding with Iran, a fact denounced in 2015 by the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

The attack was carried out by a command of the Islamic Jihad of the Hezbollah of Lebanon.

The case filed two years ago in TOF 8 had several delays.

Senator Oscar Parrilli, one of the defendants, requested the annulment of the process.

He did so after Ana María Figueroa, one of the judges who intervened in the case, revealed that she suffered pressure from the Executive Power during the administration of Mauricio Macri.

Carlos Zannini's lawyer, Mariano Fragueiro Frías, also requested the annulment of his prosecution and that the case be brought to trial.

When analyzing the situation, the prosecutor before the TOF 8, Marcelo Colombo, rejected Zannini's arguments, and was the one who urged that the judges move towards the beginning of the oral debate.

He argued that the importance of the facts investigated "requires the debate to move forward quickly so that it is there, with the publicity and scope of evidence that this stage guarantees, that the charges be definitively resolved."

Regarding the procedural deadlines, the judges recalled that they make up an assembled court, "where each of the judges intervenes in numerous trials, both in their courts of origin and in others in which they provide subrogation; that on innumerable occasions since the adjudication of this Because of this, we have asked the respective authorities for the provision of both material and human resources, which have not been addressed. "

Faced with this scenario, they decided to order the supplementary evidence "which will only partially contribute to the enormous task that we have to undertake. However, we must strive to advance the necessary procedural guidelines in order to achieve what the Prosecutor's Office itself demands: the earliest holding of the oral and public debate that allows the accused to settle their responsibilities vis-à-vis the law and society and the victims to finally find a judicial answer to their claims ".

The Court is still waiting for appeals, which on repeated occasions, have requested the Supreme Court of Justice, which has not yet responded.

The judges maintain that due to the size of the case, and

the conformation of the TOF, they require more personnel to address the next instance.

After the preliminary hearing to be held in two weeks, the TOF 8 as the prosecutor in charge of Colombo, seek to give impetus to the case and it is expected that, according to judicial sources,

the oral debate will begin in the first half of next year.

During 2021, the year of legislative elections,

Cristina Kirchner will continue to face the trial for alleged corruption in public works,

where she is accused of being the head of an illicit association that directed 51 tenders in favor of Lázaro Báez, who was her business partner.

But in parallel, the TOF 5 estimates that in the second half of the year the trial against the vice president and her two children, Máximo and Florencia Kirchner, could begin for money laundering.

In the case of TOF 8, the estimates indicate that it could be during the first semester that the debate of the investigation that began with the complaint of the prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who days later was found lifeless in the bathroom of his Puerto department. Log.

The Justice in another file, held that the former head of the UFI-AMIA was the victim of a homicide and that it should be investigated whether this was related to his complaint.

TOF 8 convened an advance testimonial statement by videoconference to former Interpol director Ronald Noble for October 5 and his deputy, Joel Sollier, for October 19, who reside, respectively, in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and the Republic of France, at the request of the Procurator General of the Treasury, Carlos Zannini.

But the declaration was postponed.

The lawsuit of relatives killed in the 1994 attack, represented by Tomás Farini Duggan, analyzes the possibility of asking the Federal Criminal Cassation Chamber to annul Noble's testimony, since in the section of the case that is still in the hands of the Judge Marcelo Martínez Di Giorgi, the former head of Interpol is accused of allegedly having collaborated with the maneuver in favor of five Iranian officials.

The accusation

On December 7, 2017, Judge Bonadio requested the violation and preventive detention of former President Cristina Kirchner.

At that time, he prosecuted her for treason, aggravated cover-up and obstruction of a functional act, all linked to the pact with Iran as an alleged benefit for those accused of the AMIA attack.

According to the justice, Cristina and several of her officials designed a "criminal plan" to "provide impunity" to the Iranians responsible for the blowing up of the Jewish mutual.

For Justice, 

the purpose of the pact with Iran was that the Iranian citizens accused of the terrorist attack “could evade the action of justice

- by granting Interpol sufficient tools so that the red index notifications that weighed against the Iranian citizens lose virtuality ”.

Thus, they were freed from "all criminal responsibility for said events -through the creation of a Truth Commission- and through this, introduce an alternative hypothesis."

The accused are Cristina Kirchner

, Eduardo Zuain, Oscar Parrilli, Carlos Zannini, Angelina Abbona, Juan Martín Mena, Andrés Larroque, Jorge Khalil, Luis D'Elía and Fernando Esteche.

The late former Chancellor Héctor Timerman was also prosecuted.

Look also

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Striking survey: 20% “don't care” whether the government wins or loses the elections

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2020-12-08

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