Police and media await the arrival to testify of the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, to the federal courts, this Tuesday in Buenos Aires.Juan Ignacio Roncoroni (EFE)
The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, sat down this Tuesday before a judge.
Not as a defendant, but as a witness.
He did it in person, when he could do it in writing.
For two and a half hours, he defended former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from the accusations of corruption that she faces.
He spoke as a former chief of staff between 2003 and 2008, part of the period in which the alleged crimes under investigation occurred: a discretionary diversion of public works funds in favor of Lázaro Báez, a businessman linked to Kirchnerism who in a few years went from being an unknown bank teller to billionaire.
Báez is serving a 12-year sentence in prison for money laundering.
In March 2021, the Argentine justice found him guilty of laundering assets for 60 million dollars between 2010 and 2013, when his name was among the state contractors preferred by Kirchnerism.
At that time, Báez was the owner of Austral Construccion, a company based in Santa Cruz, the Patagonian province that was the political stronghold of the Kirchners.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is now being investigated in a parallel case for allegedly benefiting Báez with million-dollar contracts in exchange for bribes.
The accusations are based on an audit commissioned by the Government of Mauricio Macri, referring to 51 public road safety works.
Cristina Kirchner's defense asked all of her former Cabinet chiefs to testify so that they could explain to the judge how the distribution of funds for infrastructure works is resolved.
Alberto Fernández was then distant from Kirchner and harshly criticized her on television channels.
Then they became friends, Fernández was a candidate and won the presidency.
The twists and turns of Argentine politics ended in an unprecedented event: an acting president testified as an eyewitness at the request of his vice president.
Fernández arrived at the federal courts before 10 in the morning.
He answered the judge's questions one by one and discussed with the prosecutor, responsible for the accusation.
He said that he had seen businessman Báez only once in his life “in the park of the house of [former president] Néstor Kirchner.”
He clarified that there is no rule that says how the national funds for infrastructure works should be distributed in the provinces, but denied that it is an arbitrary decision of the president.
"What they are discussing are non-judgmental political decisions, and those budget decisions can in no way be arbitrary," he said.
He then explained that the president, whoever he is, is not aware of the contracts, but only of a general version of the budget.
“How the approval of a budget works is not taken into account, it is not the decision of a president to decide where the money is spent.
That goes to Congress and a huge debate is generated within Congress, because each deputy and senator fights to bring resources to their provinces,” Fernández said.
"Definitely not," he replied when the defense attorney asked him if Cristina Kirchner was part of an illicit association to favor Báez, as the complaint maintains.
When Cristina Kirchner became vice president in December 2019, she faced 10 investigations for alleged corruption.
Since then, the cases fell one by one, either due to lack of evidence, absence of crime or procedural problems.
Only the public works file is still standing.
On May 21, 2019, the face-to-face hearings began and Cristina Kirchner sat on the bench.
The country was in the middle of the electoral process and Kirchnerism accused Macri of pressuring the courts to remove her from the political career.
The trial continued its course and is now in the final stage of the round of witnesses.
Subtract the arguments of the lawyers and the verdict.
The final sentence has no date.
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