Justice disseminates the foundations of the sentence against Cristina Kirchner: there were "promiscuous links" with corrupt businessmen

During her government, Cristina Kirchner maintained "promiscuous and corrupt ties" with a businessman in charge of public works in Santa Cruz, the Patagonian province that is the political cradle of her political movement.

This is how she appears in the grounds published this Thursday by the three judges who, last December, sentenced the vice president of Argentina to six years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office.

The judicial arguments were very harsh with Kirchner.

The judges considered her the head of an organization created from the State destined to benefit Lázaro Báez with million-dollar contracts.

The businessman, in turn, repaid "the benefits improperly obtained" through spurious deals with "the family businesses of the former president."

The conviction, based on 1,616 pages, was structured for the most part on three pieces of evidence: a 2009 decree that allowed Vialidad Nacional to have sufficient funds to pay Báez, the parallel businesses that the businessman had with Kirchner -such as the administration of hotels- and a series of chats with a senior official from the Ministry of Public Works that demonstrate, according to the reading made by the court, that the former president ordered the erasure of all traces of corruption after losing the elections in 2015.

"The public policy that your government proclaimed, foreshadowing an unprecedented benefit for the extensive Patagonian province [Santa Cruz], actually hid, like a Trojan horse, the essential budget for the successful development of the criminal enterprise and its multiple edges," they wrote. the judges.

"The magnitude of the criminal enterprise investigated here involved magnificent planning and sophistication, in which different administrative levels acted

under the same purpose," that is, to enrich themselves at the expense of State money, the magistrates considered.

The judicial calculation of the embezzlement amounted to 84,800 million dollars, about 410 million dollars at the current exchange rate.

Kirchner's lawyers now have 10 days to appeal the ruling, which must be reviewed by a second instance court.

The rest of the convicts will do the same, including Lázaro Báez himself, who was already serving a 12-year prison sentence for money laundering.

The former Secretary of Public Works, José López, famous for being caught

when trying to hide bags loaded with dollars in a convent, received 6 years and perpetual disqualification from holding public office.

Four other defendants were acquitted, including former Planning Minister Julio de Vido.

Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS America newsletter and receive all the latest news in the region.