Lucia Salinas
02/06/2021 19:48
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 02/07/2021 10:57 PM
May 21
will mark a year
since the trial against Cristina Kirchner for alleged corruption in public works began, an address in favor of Lázaro Báez that earned the public treasury $ 46,000 million, according to the indictment.
After the judicial fair,
this Monday the hearings will resume
with the testimonial statement of two people suggested by Lázaro Báez, who intervened in an audit carried out in 2013. There are still
more than a hundred witnesses
ahead
of them
to come to the stand and during the year electoral is expected to declare Javier Iguacel, former head of Highway and complainant.
There are a total of 51 tenders analyzed in this file during the investigation.
In the study of each of the cases, the prosecutors Gerardo Pollicita and Ignacio Mahiques, determined that this set of road contracts were directed to favor Lázaro Báez who, by then, administered the hotels of the Kirchner family, had carried out fifteen operations of buying and selling real estate, their companies were tenants of the firm Los Sauces of the former presidents, among other commercial agreements.
The indictment maintains that the Austral Group
received average surcharges, of 65% while half of the road contracts were not completed
.
This bulk of accusations, which brought Cristina Kirchner to the dock for the first time, focus on an even greater issue: the prosecution accused the vice president of being the head of an illicit association that was dedicated to defrauding the State by favoring Báez .
These accusations are what the prosecution seeks to demonstrate throughout the hearings.
The list of witnesses
was close to 150 people
, and there are still more than a hundred testimonies to hear.
This Monday, the only one of the eight trials that the former President has for corruption that she initiated, will resume with the testimonial statement of two engineers suggested by Lázaro Báez who signed a 2013 audit report.
The Federal Oral Court 2 (TOF 2), chaired by Judge Jorge Gorini and made up of his peers Andrés Basso and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu, is responsible for carrying out the first trial against Cristina Kirchner, where the prosecution by Diego Luciani intervenes.
Like last year, there will be
two weekly hearings that will take place, set for Monday and Tuesday.
As the plaintiff, the Anti-Corruption Office (OA) led by Felix Crous intervenes in the case, which has already anticipated that when the accusation stage begins,
it will withdraw
.
The decision of the state agency was reported after withdrawing from the lawsuits in the Los Sauces and Hotesur cases, where Cristina Kirchner and her children - Máximo and Florencia Kirchner - are prosecuted for money laundering.
The case that will resume on Monday is a large-scale trial: it has
16 defendants
, 51 bids analyzed during the investigation, audits ordered by the National Highway Directorate (DNV) of the macro-level management, accounting statements of the holding company that it built since May 2003 Lázaro Báez and certifications of works.
Likewise, TOF 2 ordered an expert opinion on five witness cases that produced surcharges, with the dissent of the expert named by Cristina Kirchner, from 117 to 200 million dollars.
The hearings began in May 2019 and despite the pandemic, the trial managed to print a certain rhythm under the semi-face-to-face modality after several months of being detained.
With a system already in place to carry it out, hundreds of witnesses still lie ahead.
At this rate, although in Comodoro Py no one risks precise dates, everything indicates that the allegations will not begin until 2022.
This week, the sentence against Báez for money laundering within the framework of the Route of Money K will also be known, he is accused of having laundered 60 million dollars.
The case was linked to the trial against the former president, since the accusation maintains that the money used for laundering operations came from the road contracts under investigation.
