They ask for 12 years in prison for Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner 2:47
(CNN Spanish) -
The Prosecutor's Office accuses Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, vice president of Argentina, of having headed an association to defraud the State when she was president, between 2007 and 2015, by allegedly directing millionaire contracts for road works in the province of Santa Cruz.
Prosecutor Diego Luciani, at the head of this case known as "Roads", requested this week 12 years in prison for Fernández and perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
The also former president assures that this accusation of corruption —the only one against the vice president that has reached the oral trial instance— has no foundations and that it is a persecution against her and the political project she represents.
In her words, she affirms that she is not "before a court of the Constitution, but before a media-judicial firing squad" and that the sentence against her is already written.
What is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner accused of?
Fernández is accused of having led an illicit association to defraud the public administration during a period that encompasses her two presidencies (2007-2011 and 2011-2015), by extracting state funds for her personal benefit or that of a third party.
The Prosecutor's Office affirms that together with several former officials of his government, he directed million-dollar contracts for road works that, according to the complaint, were incomplete, overpriced and even unnecessary.
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Fernández de Kirchner rejects these accusations.
The accusation specifically refers to 51 tenders in the province of Santa Cruz, from which her deceased husband, former President Néstor Kirchner, was from, and where both developed a good part of their professional and political careers before jumping onto the national scene. .
In this accusation there is another fundamental figure, that of Lázaro Báez, former partner of the Kirchner couple and whom the prosecutors point out as the main beneficiary of this alleged fraud.
In other words, that he would have been the favored one with the directing of the works, and that later, by different means, he would have economically benefited his alleged partners.
Prosecutor Luciani —who sets the start of the alleged fraud in the government of Néstor Kirchner— affirms that, in order to divert funds, "overnight Lázaro Báez, a friend of the then president of the nation and business partner of him and his wife".
Báez is already sentenced to 12 years in prison, issued in 2021, for money laundering charges between 2003 and 2015, and which has been appealed by his defense before the Cassation Chamber.
Regarding this sentence, his lawyer affirmed that it is the product of an alleged "political and media persecution."
CNN is seeking a reaction from the defense of Báez to the new accusations, but so far we have not received a response.
à DV: The Conecta2 team got this.
Please use it: In dialogue with CNN, Báez's defense denied the accusations, alleging that the evidence used to confirm the illicit association belongs to another file and that during the arguments it will show that the prosecution lies in its arguments.
13 people are charged in the case, including the vice president.
Another of the best known implicated is the former Minister of Planning Julio de Vido, whose lawyers responded that the accusations against him are untrue and that they will give their answers in the corresponding allegations.
Tension in front of the house of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner 4:15
Could I go to jail?
Fernández de Kirchner is protected by the same constitutional immunity as the president, for which she cannot be arrested unless she is removed by impeachment.
In other words, she would not go to jail even if the court of justice gives the green light to prosecutor Luciani's 12-year request, unless two-thirds of the Chamber of Deputies indicts her and the same proportion of senators finds her guilty so that she remains at the disposal of justice without any jurisdiction.
As long as she is not convicted, she would be in a position to run for an elective position in the 2023 elections, for example senator, deputy or again for the presidency of the country.
In any of these new positions, she would once again be protected by constitutional privileges.
In this regard, the Constitution establishes that "no senator or deputy, from the day of his election until the day of his dismissal, can be arrested; except in the case of being caught red-handed in the execution of a crime that deserves the death penalty, infamous , or other afflictive".
(In the event that she was convicted, had no privileges and was forced to serve the sentence, there is also the possibility of house arrest since the law defines cases in which the judge can order that the sentence be served at home and one of them is that the sentenced person is older than 70. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will fulfill them next February).
Can Alberto Fernández pardon her?
The Constitution establishes that the president "can pardon or commute sentences for crimes subject to federal jurisdiction," except in cases where the accusation is from the Chamber of Deputies.
In the last few hours, after Luciani's request for jail, the possibility that Fernández grant a pardon to his vice president in the face of a conviction returned to the center of the conversations.
There are conflicting views in the legal field as to whether the mechanism could be applied in this particular case, by virtue of another article of the Magna Carta that talks about crimes of corruption.
There is another point under discussion and that is whether the president can pardon Fernández de Kirchner when there is still no sentence, since pardons can only be issued when there is a conviction.
"Pardon is a power that the president has that, from the constitutional point of view, is applied to people who have been sentenced with a final sentence," constitutional lawyer Andrés Gil Domínguez explained to CNN Radio Argentina.
However, for a long time it was discussed whether it is possible for a person who is in process, who has not been convicted and who is presumed innocent, to be pardoned by a president because, in some way, the presumption of innocence would be ignored.
"This discussion took place in the 1990s, when Menem issued an omnibus pardon to supposedly pacify the country," he recalled in dialogue with María Laura Santillán, referring to the pardons issued by the then president and that benefited military chiefs and leaders of the guerrilla that in some cases still did not have a firm conviction.
"Then, the Supreme Court (with a different composition) determined that the pardon was a presidential power that always pursued a goal of social pacification and that it proceeded both for convicted persons with a final sentence and for those prosecuted," he said about what then happened in the instance judicial after the benefits granted by Menem.
This Wednesday, Cristina Fernández shared on Twitter the message of a senator from the Frente de Todos that says "For CFK neither pardon nor amnesty: Justice."
What leaves the request for the conviction of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner 7:19
President Fernández, for his part, has previously referred to this particular point.
In 2019, when he was a candidate, he categorically ruled out the possibility of pardoning her.
"If some stupid person is thinking that I am coming there (the Presidency) to pardon someone, they are stupid (...). I do not believe pardons, because pardons are a hindrance to monarchies. Presidents are not there to forgive anyone ", he stated then in an interview with Telenoche.
The president, however, described prosecutor Luciani's request as judicial persecution after his decision was known and, hours later, published a statement with his peers from Mexico, Colombia and Bolivia in which they assured that the persecution is aimed at " remove Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from public, political and electoral life".
With information from Emilia Delfino, Iván Pérez Sarmenti, Juan Pablo Varsky and Abel Alvarado from CNN.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner