Lucia Salinas
08/13/2021 11:02
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 08/13/2021 11:18 AM
Although it has not yet sent to the Justice the documentation that the federal prosecutor
Ramiro González
required when he decided to open the investigation into the visits to the Olivos farm while the harsh restrictions due to the Covid pandemic were in force, the Government must explain to the justice the reasons why those that President Alberto Fernández received groups of people during his 2020 birthday and also on that of the first lady, Fabiola Yañez.
This Thursday an image of that last celebration was released, in which ten people are seen with Yáñez and Fernández
without chinstraps and without keeping social distance in the celebration
of Yáñez's 39th birthday at the Olivos Presidential Farm on July 14 from last year.
On that date, these meetings were expressly prohibited by a Decree of Necessity and Urgency signed by the president himself.
DNU 576/2020 said that it
was forbidden
"to hold events in public or private spaces, social, cultural, recreational, religious and of any other nature with attendance of more than TEN (10) people." In addition, it forced to maintain the social distance and prohibited the movement of people whose activity was not essential.
When he decided to promote the investigation after receiving the complaint, the prosecutor González maintained that "the procedural object of the present case will aim to establish
the effective existence of conducts in violation of the norms established
in the framework of the declaration of pandemic."
After the dissemination of the photo, the prosecution
analyzes promoting new investigative measures in the case
.
The original complaint - which was expanded against the actress
Florencia Peña
, who also went to Olivos in 2020 - involves the President and
Sofía Pacchi
, a former model and friend of Yáñez who works for the Government assisting the presidential couple, for their visits to the Quinta de Olivos during the past year when a strict quarantine was in force as a result of the pandemic, and six other people who shared different moments, including the birthday of the First Lady.
The crime that would have been incurred, according to the complainants, is that of violation of the regulations, by "
failing
to
comply with the isolation measures
" ordered by the Executive Power. But the prosecutor González went further and is also investigating the breach of a regulation aggravated by their status as public officials. In fact, it was Alberto Fernández himself who said that those who violated the DNU that established the restrictions and that he himself signed,
should give explanations before a judge
. Now, he must give them.
The judicial investigation seeks to determine if the behaviors reported, "could configure
the crimes provided for in Article 205, such as the crime provided for in Article 248
in fine of the Penal Code, which establishes the typicity of the actions of the official who will not execute the laws whose compliance is incumbent upon him ".
There is a specific request on the part of the Justice that the Government must respond: first it must deliver the Military House of the Presidency of the Nation,
"the entry and exit records"
of Sofía Pachi, of her partner, the Taiwanese Chien Chia Hong, of the hairdresser Emmanuel López, from Fernando Consagra, Ariel Alonso Zapata, from Lautaro Romero and also from Florencia Peña corresponding to the year 2020.
Clarín
revealed that Chien Chia Hong, the Taiwanese businessman and Pachi's partner who was going to see the President in Olivos while strict quarantine was in force throughout the country, obtained three contracts with the Argentine Army for more than 6 million pesos and others with different areas of public administration. But in addition, the Government must specify to the prosecution, the date, time, character or position, of those who entered the presidential Fifth, in order to
determine if they had the corresponding authorization that was required by the DNU and that only applied to essential personnel.
.
Within the framework of the request, the Government
must answer what was the reason that this group of people declared when entering Olivos
and that "authorization was required by whoever carried it out," said the prosecutor.
The complaint was directed against the same article of the Penal Code, the article that is imputed to people who were detained for quarantine violations.
From March 20 to December 31, 2020, 10,846 cases were opened in the Federal Capital for failing to comply with the DNU of President Alberto Fernández.
The updated figure as of August 12 of this year shows a total of 14,619 causes for this reason.
The complaint about the meetings in Olivos focused on the fact that several of the visits were at night. There are two that are the most controversial: those of April 2 and July 14 of last year, since they are the birthdays of the President and Fabiola Yáñez. "Just at the strictest moment of quarantine where people were detained for anything," explained one of the complainants, Marcos Longoni, who chairs the United Republican Electoral Board in the city of Buenos Aires, the party that leads as the first candidate to deputy to Ricardo López Murphy, in the board of Juntos por el Cambio.
On April 2, 2020, the Télam news agency announced that President Fernández was going to celebrate his 61st birthday with his partner Fabiola Yañez and his son Estanislao, "who accepted his father's invitation to stay in Olivos during the quarantine."
The celebration was at the Olivos Residence, from where the President "directs the actions against the coronavirus."
However, it was revealed that Sofía Pacchi was also at the Quinta de Olivos that same April 2, between 10 p.m. and 11 a.m.
And he went there again during Fabiola Yañez's birthday, on July 14, between 9:46 p.m. and 1:44 a.m.
On both dates, other people also entered the celebration.
Twitter user @gonziver showed on social networks the records of income and expenses of the Quinta de Olivos, which he obtained with a request for access to public information, where more than 60 visits of the model Pacchi to the Presidential Residence were exposed de Olivos during 2020. The income list also included the President's dog trainer, Yañez's hairdresser and several celebrities.
The Government sought to minimize the complaint and pointed out that all the visits made to the Quinta de Olivos "were of a professional nature, for work reasons."
The same was said by the President himself
.
Likewise, it was explained that Pacchi works as a "personal assistant" to Yáñez, whom he has known for about 15 years. Official sources highlighted his "training in Ceremonial and Protocol issues, as well as in social networks at the Siglo XXI University, along with his studies in social communication at UADE". But they clarified that now his work is "remote", since he
no longer goes to Quinta de Olivos as before
.