By Almudena Calatrava - The Associated Press
An Argentine court sentenced the Argentine vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, to six years in prison on Tuesday for a fraud and bribery plot;
The sentence includes a penalty of disqualification for life from holding public office, although it can be appealed to other higher courts.
The court, made up of three judges, considered the fraudulent management proven but dismissed the prosecution's accusation that the 69-year-old leader led an illegal association, for which she had requested a total sentence of 12 years in prison.
The vice president heard the ruling in her office in the Senate, which she presides over as vice president of Argentina.
In the streets, hundreds of supporters gathered around the federal courthouse to support the former president.
The building was surrounded by fences and heavily guarded by police officers.
Fernández de Kirchner was found guilty of irregularly adjudicating during her two terms (2007-2015) 51 road works with national funds to Lázaro Báez, a related businessman, which entailed defrauding the State of nearly $1,000 million.
The ruling can be appealed and will be final when the Supreme Court of Justice so decides, a process that could take years.
Until then, the vice president may run for any popularly elected office (from a congressional seat to the presidency) as provided by law.
This is the first trial of Fernández de Kirchner and the first sentencing request he has faced.
Other judicial investigations have been closed and several for different crimes are still open.
The sentence is expected to have a strong impact since it is the first time that an Argentine vice president has been sentenced while in office and because Fernández de Kirchner is the most important political figure of the last 20 years.
The Federal Court announced its verdict around 2030 GMT during the last hearing of the trial and amid enormous expectation.
He also sentenced other defendants to six years in prison, such as Báez and the former Secretary of Public Works, José López.
Prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola maintained during the trial that Báez's company was a structure created to extract funds from the State through the irregular allocation of public works and that when Fernández de Kirchner's term ended, it disappeared.
They also claimed that several highway projects registered cost overruns and many were never completed.
They pointed out that this corruption scheme, "the largest ever known in the country", was also in force during the presidency of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), husband and predecessor of the vice president and who died three years after leaving power.
Fernández de Kirchner denied the accusations and accused the court of having the written sentence from the beginning of the trial and of acting like a "firing squad."
