In a single paragraph, what happened last week was this: on Monday, March 20, the Supreme Court of the province of Buenos Aires was informed by the Buenos Aires Jury for the Prosecution of Magistrates and Officials that, three days earlier, they had been notified of a resolution (dated March 15) by which the Bicameral Commission for the Prosecution of Magistrates and Officials of the Legislature of the province demanded to suspend the jury against the prosecutor of San Isidro Claudio Scapolan.
This exhausting succession of notifications of notifications (like this, without respite or a full stop), is only the last chapter of the battle that surrounds one of the biggest scandals aired in the judicial jurisdiction of San Isidro.
The main character is the former prosecutor for Complex Crimes
Claudio Scapolan
(currently suspended from office).
Scapolan (52) was, for years, the strong man of the resigned Attorney General Julio Novo, who back in 2013 sounded like Sergio Massa's Minister of Justice, if he became president.
Novo today awaits an oral trial,
accused of protecting drug traffickers
.
The attorney general of San Isidro Julio Novo is suspended.
Next Tuesday, March 28, at 9 a.m., in the basement of the annex to the province's Chamber of Senators, the start of the jury is scheduled for which a series of frantic hearings were scheduled: three days with 18 witnesses each.
It sounds like something impractical.
It is assumed that the same 28, between 9 and 11.30, testify the first five witnesses.
And the list starts with the federal prosecutor of San Isidro
Fernando Domínguez
and the federal judge
Sandra Arroyo Salgado
.
Prosecutor Claudio Scapolan and Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado.
They were the ones who did the deepest investigation -before ever faced- on Scapolan, although Arroyo Salgado was challenged and ended up being separated from the case by the Chamber.
The schedule of the Trial Jury is exhausting, but today the biggest fear is not meeting the daily deadlines but that the jury
cannot start due to political pressure
.
Proof of these pressures that exist to stop him is what happened with the Bicameral Commission just a few days ago.
Over the years, the Bicameral for the Prosecution of Magistrates and Officials of the Buenos Aires Legislature has never answered the hearings that it received from the Scapolan case.
Actually, it was not even established as such until relatively recently.
However, in a movement that was denounced by the Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM), complainant in the criminal file against Scapolan, now asked that
the jury be stopped
to internalize the case.
All about the time.
"
Despite the institutional seriousness surrounding the case, possible delaying maneuvers originating from the Bicameral Commission for the Prosecution of Magistrates and Officials of the Judiciary of the provincial legislature have publicly transcended, which would have the objective of requesting said file to analyze it, postponing and preventing Thus the beginning of the political trial against the prosecutor Scapolan
", says the document of the CPM, to which
Clarín
had access .
"
We are facing a case of significant institutional gravity, shaped by different acts of corruption and state violence, considering that the people involved -and in many cases prosecuted and confirmed by the Court-, were or are public officials in charge of prosecuting crimes such as those who have committed
", he concludes.
The Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM) warned about "delaying maneuvers" in the jury against Claudio Scapolan.
Detail: although the Bicameral has an accusatory role in the process, this is neither essential nor its binding opinion.
hard to judge
On February 23, after many comings and goings and after almost all the possible Buenos Aires judges excused themselves from intervening in the case, the Jury of Prosecution decided to set a date for Scapolan's jury: March 28.
The decision was almost unanimous.
Only legislator Sofía Vannelli (Frente de Todos) voted in dissent, a reference to massismo, a sector from which Scapolan and his former boss, former attorney general Julio Novo, always received
support
.
Although for the moment the accusations in the Justice against Scapolan were (via the Chamber) reduced to a firm prosecution for "
falsification of a public instrument
", the jury arrives accused of the conducts for which at the time the judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado asked that they remove him they went to stop him.
Elisa Carrio.
Photo Martin Bonetto
In the jury, Scapolan is identified as
the head of a gang made up of police officers, court officials and lawyers
dedicated to extortion, the arming of operatives and the resale of drugs seized in anti-drug proceedings.
The attorney of the Buenos Aires Court, Julio Conte Grand, accused him of all this, based on the evidence gathered in a file that originally began in 2016 with a complaint from the deputy Elisa "Lilita" Carrió.
Added to this complaint - which has been dormant for years - was the investigation carried out by the federal prosecutor of San Isidro Fernando Domínguez and judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado.
Julio Conte Grand, Buenos Aires attorney.
In December of last year, the Jury for the Prosecution of Officials and Magistrates of the Province of Buenos Aires - chaired by Judge Ana María Bourimborde - decided to suspend Scapolan and start the path towards his political trial.
Since then, the prosecutor has been automatically left with a garnishment of 40 percent of his salary.
But more importantly: he missed the opportunity to resign from his position to stop his possible removal.
Since the criminal proceedings against him began, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, 32 people - including drug traffickers, lawyers and police officers - have been prosecuted and are currently waiting for the Federal Oral Court No. 1 of San Isidro to set a date for an oral and public trial.
At the time, Arroyo Salgado prosecuted Scapolan as the head of a gang of lawyers and policemen who
set up cases, extorted drug traffickers, and stole cocaine from the proceedings
.
But his defense appealed and in June 2022 Room I of the Federal Chamber of San Martín turned everything around and only confirmed a tiny part of what was resolved by the judge.
Thus, today, Scapolan's fate seems more complicated by the jury than by the criminal case.
The question is how many sticks in the wheel will put his allies up to 8.59 this Tuesday.
EMJ
look also
They investigate the disappearance of a key witness in the case of the robbery of Sergio Massa's house
Judicial scandal in San Isidro: the jury against Claudio Scapolan, with a defined date and list of "notable" witnesses