Pablo Javier Blanco
02/03/2021 19:25
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 02/03/2021 19:25
The image on
the screen says it all
.
There are no longer machines to count millions of dollars in bundles, nor bags full of bills waiting their turn.
There are also no imported whiskeys, or Cuban cigars, as in the small office of SGI, the Puerto Madero finance company known to the whole country as La Rosadita.
But
the protagonists
do coincide
, who no longer laugh as they are captured on video by a
security
camera
.
Now their faces are pale and broken while being filmed.
Everyone is free in some lost office with the appearance of a downtown Buenos Aires, with decorations that say nothing or half-empty libraries.
All except one
.
Martín Báez, the son of businessman Lázaro Báez, an emblem of the instantaneous prosperity represented by the public works in the administrations of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, stares at the camera.
He has short hair and a lost face.
In the little square of the Zoom, which is being broadcast live through YouTube, on the lower left margin, it says "Unit 31".
The heir to the Austral Construcciones emporium is in prison.
Only he is still incarcerated for the cause that investigates a gigantic mechanism to launder dirty money: almost 60 million dollars in the corruption complaint called "The route of money K", which uncovered Jorge Lanata's program in 2013, 8 years ago .
His closing statement is short: it lasts just over a minute.
Microphone in hand, Báez's son pleads not guilty.
"
I am neither a mobster nor a criminal, I am an ordinary person
," he says, wearing a light blue T-shirt, blue Adidas joggers, black sneakers and no longer the collected hair that he showed in court hearings before the pandemic.
─Good morning, judges, I just wanted to clarify a few things and well ... I am an honest person,
I was and am good people, and currently with my life destroyed
.
I hope I could have explained that I did not do what the complaints tried to accuse me of.
I am neither a mobster nor a criminal, I am an ordinary person.
That he worked in his father's company, starting and learning ─the discharge of Martín Báez begins.
He does not improvise, he
reads nervously
.
“I trust the wisdom and good faith of the court, although I am honestly from every point of view socially condemned.
I hope that after the torment of so many years, it has been possible to clarify that none of the accusations are true, although so much damage no longer has repair.
Your Excellency, I beg you to apply the law and absolve me because
I have not committed any crime and I am only interested in my children
”.
And so it ends.
Its download lasts just 80 seconds.
Minute and twenty to wield his defense, eight years after the first complaint against his family and a few days after serving two in prison,
for having transferred more than 5 million dollars to an account in the Bahamas
, according to the Financial Information Unit (UIF). ).
Lázaro Báez with his son Martín in the trial for the route of the money K. He testified from unit 31 of the Ezeiza prison
But the eldest of businessman K's sons
was not the only one who spoke
at the hearing of the Oral Court in Federal Criminal 4. Most of the defendants, several from the scandalous video of La Rosadita, were again shown publicly.
The accountant Daniel Pérez Gadín was the one who expanded the most, but so did Fabián Rossi, Iliana Calabró's ex-husband who blamed the court case for their divorce;
Federico Elaskar, the financier who sold his company to the Baez;
businessman Carlos Molinari, who paid for Leonardo Fariña's marriage, -repentant in the same case- with the star Karina Jelinek, among others.
Pérez Gadín: Lawfare, Lanata and Buitre Funds
Daniel
Pérez Gadín
, the accountant who drank whiskey with Martín Baez,
is unrecognizable
.
Fatter, with a white beard and glasses, his figure is far from being that of 2013, when Austral Construcciones was a company at its peak.
Solicitously, he thanks the court for suspending his participation in the previous hearing because he felt bad.
"Just in case I did a swab, because despite being quarantined, the symptoms were complicated," he said, to relax the beginning of what would be the longest statement of the day.
More than 40 minutes in which the accountant will explain
how he entered Lázaro Báez's company and what he did in it
to end up denouncing lawfare and a kind of plot between vulture funds, Paul Singer, Jorge Lanata and Justice against him.
"When Mr. Báez hired me, it was to train his children in the use of modern management techniques," he insists to emphasize that his role was one and only one: to give Martín Báez coaching sessions.
“In that management we did countless training courses.
Without any doubt,
Báez wanted Martín to grow in the organization
, he participated in many meetings and I participated with him ”.
He confesses that he knew that the Baez were in the eye of the storm, but that they had been dismissed.
"It was unimaginable that this group had financial or legal problems,"
he excuses himself.
With the remanded argument of the lawfare, Pérez Gadín believes he can explain the cause that has him as a defendant along with what the justice defines as an illicit association destined to launder money.
The fetish concept of the Kirchnerist manual to reinterpret the accusations of corruption - non-existent when this scandal was uncovered in 2013 - is for him the explanation for everything.
Retroactively.
Before and after.
Daniel Perez Gadín made an extensive argument in a new day of the money route trial K.
"Today it is clear to us why that journalist appeared", he
declares and looks at the camera on his laptop. And he attacks: "It is known that this journalist, to invent the K money route, was financed by Paul Singer at the time in which the country refused to pay the vulture funds.
It all begins, not seeking money laundering from Mr. Báez, it begins by trying to involve the former president of the Nation, now vice president, ”he continues and adds to his erratic argument that, after the change of government, the cause of the Baez and their death Nisman's were used to "manipulate public opinion."
The accountant repeats to emphasize: "this is a typical case of
lawfare, initiated by concentrated media (sic)
, financed by vulture funds, supported by the innumerable and frenzied complaints presented by deputies who make this their profession," he shoots. .
A separate paragraph is taken by Elisa Carrió, whom, without naming, claims as
"a deputy who has accused the President of wanting to poison Argentines,"
in reference to the judicial presentation of deputies of the Civic Coalition for the lack of information on the Russian vaccine Sputnik V.
Pérez Gadín takes a deep breath and holds hands.
Fingers intertwined, look at the lens again.
"This type of event is what had to endure in Argentina in recent years;
unfortunately I paid for it with prison
”, he says, from the address where he is under arrest for the benefit granted to him to leave prison in the midst of the pandemic for being a risk patient.
“
I read the other day in a book that to be in prison is to be dead
.
It is very similar, I relived a couple of times a week, a couple of hours, when I received a visit from my family, the rest was the same as being dead ", he philosophizes at the end of his statement, as a prelude to emphasize his consideration of innocence: "I am convinced that I did not commit any crime, not even accidentally, my conduct was not malicious."
Elaskar, Rossi, Fariña and a broken Molinari
Federico Elaskar when he began the route of the K money and today, eight years later, when he gave his final statement.
"For the lawsuits I am guilty, the majority have resigned, they did not stay to see the end."
The one who speaks now is Federico Elaskar, the person whose testimony - along with Leonardo Fariña's - started the Route of Money K. The financier, who even said that Cristina Kirchner was "the number one washing machine" in the Báez scheme,
now it doesn't mention politicians
.
Neither official nor opponents.
Choose showbusiness
He says that he only sold a finance company, SGI, and that they never paid him off.
“The only thing that could be proven is that they bought my company.
Mr. Fariña bought a lot of things.
Leonardo has bought an apartment from Cecilia Bolocco, he has bought a Ferrari from Mauricio Filiberti (the businessman known as "Mister Chlorine" who was news days ago for joining Edenor), he has bought a field from (Juan Carlos) Schiappa of Azevedo.
I do not see any of these three people processed in an oral and public trial ”,
he defends himself from a kitchen
.
Behind him
there is movement
.
A woman at one point
opens a refrigerator.
He then
moves a tender
while Elaskar continues to try to convince him of his innocence in his final plea.
Typical scene of justice in the days of Zoom.
"I cannot be a member of an illicit association when I was thousands of kilometers away,
I cannot say terrified
, but I was in what was always my country, the United States, where I grew up and was educated academically", he says and reaffirms: "a seven thousand kilometers, threatening me because they didn't pay me, that speaks for itself. "
Elaskar pulls jokes.
At times, he talks on the phone, smokes, stands up.
“I am with a lot of work and I feel that
my life is moving towards normality every day
.
I am totally and completely innocent of the fact: I want to go on with my life and make up for lost time ”, he concludes.
Another humor is that of Fabián Rossi, the ex-husband of Iliana Calabró.
“When this started in 2013,
a bomb fell in my life
, nothing was the same.
A destroyed family, friends, relatives, a destroyed social life, not to mention work life.
My graphics clients, with whom I worked thirty years ago, did not want to see me close.
I had mobile TV channels on my doorstep for months.
This thing that looks like something minimal, of color, believe me it is not like that, it is something very painful, annoying, tortuous.
The boys, school, going shopping, going out for a while ... it became impossible to continue like this ”, explains Rossi, more on the route of his divorce.
Accustomed to rub shoulders with celebrities, to laugh out loud on television shows and to be part of a sort of primetime jet set of the time,
“El Rossi”, as he was known, is no longer
.
He tells that his life was destroyed.
"Journalists who worked with me, who shared seasons, TV programs and others, friends ... they became hostile people and even accusers," he laments.
Fabián Rossi yesterday and today.
The media man blamed the court case for having caused his separation from Iliana Calabró.
Rossi maintained that he never had a relationship with Lázaro Báez and Daniel Pérez Gadín.
His strategy is to be a victim of fame.
“I did not know them;
Yes, it has been shown who the person was who had a close relationship, who even said by himself that they belonged to the same band, but that person did not scratch in the media, he did not report journalistically because he had no media profile.
My teeth were scratching,
”he repeats angrily.
Different is the story of another defendant who still claims to have nothing to do with it.
It is about C
arlos Molinari, speaking in front of a wooden library that bears his initials engraved
.
“I have an 8 year old son and I want him to see this.
They say that
children come with bread under their arms, unfortunately mine came with a trial
”, he jokes.
It's not Rossi.
Molinari says that he did not lose family, friends, or partners.
That he had no social condemnation, that he was not insulted on the street.
His only sin was having paid for a marriage
.
Not just anyone: Leonardo Fariña and Karina Jelinek's.
“I feel that I have been sentenced for eight years, overnight, through the press, and in a fabulous situation that exhibited this trial for one main reason: the payment of a marriage.
My only claim is to be able to turn the page ”, he argues.
"He was not the trusted person of Lázaro Báez"
Claudio Bustos at the money route trial K.
The minutes go by, other defendants claim their innocence, thank their lawyers, the court and nothing else.
Jorge Chueco
watches them all while
playing with his cell phone
in an office where all the shelves are empty.
Most of them express themselves in a calm way,
except Claudio Bustos, who is nervous
.
It is difficult for him to look at the screen.
Breathe hard and
close your eyes tightly
.
Consigned as one of Lázaro Báez's trusted men, he denies being one.
Appeal to move:
─I want to emphasize that I did not have participation or movements with foreign bank accounts, nor any benefit;
On the contrary, all this situation harmed me on a personal, family and economic level, especially considering my situation where unfortunately I have had to face the disability of two brothers and contribute to the support of my mother who is very old.
Bustos, like everyone else, is convinced of his innocence and denies, like everyone else, ties to the Santa Cruz businessman.
The allegations are
a sample of styles of argumentation.
The money route judgment zoom K.
The cause is something else.
There it appears that Bustos was one of those authorized to enter the SGI financial institution, where millions of dollars and euros were handled, often coming from the south.
Fariña declared so.
Judge Sebastián Casanello also left it in writing
when explaining the operation of a maneuver with public debt securities, re-entered the country in a bank account of Austral Construcciones, in which there were nine checks for $ 208,840,876, endorsed by Jorge Chueco ─ as Helvetic─ and deposited by Eduardo Larrea and Claudio Bustos on behalf of Austral.
The verdict
Next week there would be a verdict in the case.
The prosecution claimed 12 years in prison for Lázaro Báez - detained since June 2016-.
For their children too: 9 for Martín, 5 years for Leandro and 4 years and six months in prison for Melina and Luciana.
His defense demanded absolution.
The representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office also requested penalties for the accountant Daniel Pérez Gadín (8 years), the lawyer Jorge Chueco (8 years), the repentant Valijero Leandro Fariña (5 years), and the financier Federico Elaskar (4 years and six months) prison).
The complaints of the Anticorruption Office, the AFIP and the Financial Information Unit also requested effective prison sentences.
In the case, there is no more room for words.
DS
