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(CNN Spanish) -
Argentine Justice dismissed Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on Friday in advance;
his sons Máximo and Florencia Kirchner;
and to businessmen Lázaro Báez and Cristóbal López, among others, in the Hotesur-Los Sauces case, according to the ruling accessed by CNN.
Both Fernández de Kirchner and the rest of the defendants had to be tried for the alleged crimes of money laundering, illicit association and negotiations incompatible with the public function.
The case focuses on alleged corruption money laundering maneuvers through the hotel and real estate businesses of the Kirchner family during the governments of the current vice president, according to the ruling and the opinion of the prosecutor.
However, by decision of the majority of Thursdays of the Federal Oral Court number 5, the defendants will not be tried, for the time being.
The decision may be appealed by the prosecutor.
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This is the third file in which the former president is dismissed this year in advance of the start of the oral and public trial.
The same measure had been taken by another court in the Memorandum with Iran case, for alleged cover-up of the attack on the AMIA Jewish mutual society, and by the Federal Court of Cassation in the Future Dollar case, for alleged fraudulent administration.
The Kirchners received money from the rents that the businessmen Lázaro Báez and Cristóbal López, both contractors of public works, paid to the companies Hotesur and Los Sauces while they benefited from bids and contracts granted by the authorities during the Fernández de Kirchner governments. .
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The vice president's lawyers maintain that “Hotesur SA and Los Sauces SA were legal businesses”, they acknowledge the payment of rents, but they maintain that they would not be related to the contracts awarded to the entrepreneurs who paid them, according to the brief presented by the defense before the proposal.
In the Hotesur-Los Sauces case, the defense of Fernández de Kirchner had already requested the dismissals previously and the court had rejected the claim in April 2019, according to the ruling accessed by CNN.
In addition, the Federal Chamber of Cassation had just rejected a request for annulment of the elevation of the file to trial, according to La Nación.
Justice orders the dismissal of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner because of the memorandum with Iran
The court's decision this Friday was in response to a new request from the vice president's lawyers, Carlos Beraldi and Ari Llernovoy. Judges Daniel Obligado and Adrián Grünberg voted in favor of Fernández de Kirchner and the rest of the defendants. Judge Adriana Palliotti voted against the dismissals and stated that the case should be analyzed in an oral and public trial, as requested by the prosecutor in the case, Diego Velazco.
Regarding the accusation, the judges Obligado and Grünberg maintained that the funds used to pay the rents were of "legal origin" because they were banked and because "they were supported by rules and decisions emanating from official bodies and / or authorities." They also stated that the more benign law should be applied, another of the arguments of the Criminal Procedure Code to enable an early dismissal, and that until 2011 - the investigated facts begin in 2008 and continue until 2015 - the "car wash" - that is, the maneuver to launder their own money - it was not contemplated by Argentine law.
“The appearance of legality of the assets was given from the first moment;
that is, from the time the funds were transferred for the contracting of public works, licenses or concessions, or tax or other benefits were provided;
all of them backed by the strict regulations ”, stated judges Obligado and Grünberg.
The Argentine Criminal Procedure Code allows a pretrial dismissal to be analyzed, but to do so, the file must meet certain requirements, such as the appearance of new evidence in favor of the accused (s).
The prosecutor had argued in his opinion that this condition was not met, since, for example, there are still two accounting expert opinions pending, requested by the defense of Fernández de Kirchner, whose full results have not yet been incorporated into the file.
Judges Obligado and Grünberg suspended these skills on Friday, according to the ruling.
Judge Palliotti rejected in a vote that the partial results of one of the tests can be considered "new evidence" and are "strongly objected to by the prosecutor."
The magistrates also argued that the accusation for alleged illicit association "is not viable" because it would be the "same fact" that is being tried in another trial against Fernández de Kirchner and Báez, among other arguments.
Báez was sentenced last February to twelve years in prison for the crime of aggravated money laundering and according to the judges of the Federal Oral Court number 4, the funds investigated came from corruption. The businessman is also tried together with the vice president in another trial known as the Vialidad case for alleged fraud of the public administration in the concession of road works in the province of Santa Cruz in favor of the Báez companies, although in this trial it was not it deals with the payment of rents by the employer to the Kirchner family.
Prosecutors from Hotesur and Los Sauces had determined that an alleged criminal association allowed the defendants "first to steal public funds from the National State and then to seize them through different money laundering mechanisms."
Through Hotesur, the Kirchners received funds from Báez companies for the payment of rooms at the El Calafate hotel, a property managed, at the same time, by a Báez company.
López was accused of paying rents to real estate owned by the Kirchners that were in the name of the Los Sauces company.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner