Although Cristina Kirchner requested that judges Mariano Borinsky and Gustavo Hornos be removed to analyze the accusatory sentence she received in the trial of the Vialidad case, the Fourth Chamber of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation rejected the challenges in limine, that is, without even analyzing them. Thus, he will begin to analyze the sentence for corruption to six years in prison against the vice, including the request of prosecutor Diego Luciani to be attributed the crime of illicit association.
After knowing the grounds of the sentence of the Federal Oral Court 2 (TOF 2), and after all the parties presented their appeals, the highest criminal court began to take the first steps to analyze the conviction against Cristina Kirchner, Lázaro Báez, José López, Nelson Periotti and other defendants.
While the chamberman Javier Carbajo excused himself from intervening in the case, the other two members of Chamber IV, Mariano Borinsky and Gustavo Hornos, were recused by Carlos Beraldi, the defense lawyer of the vice president.
Throughout the process of the oral trial, Beraldi and his fellow defenders of other defendants made various presentations against the magistrates, using as a central argument the visits to the presidential estate of Olivos and the Casa Rosada during the presidency of Mauricio Macri. Cristina Kirchner always maintained that they were linked to key decisions that were made in judicial files that involve her.
The judges in various presentations explained that those officially recorded visits were not related to any of the judgments in which they pronounced in various files, comparing the dates of the same.
On this occasion, responsible for analyzing the sentence received by the vice president for fraudulent administration to the detriment of the public administration in the case where the 51 road contracts awarded to Lázaro Báez -his former business partner- were analyzed, Judges Borinsky and Hornos rejected the proposals.
With this decision, in the resolution to which Clarín agreed, it was determined to accept the appeals and thus take the first steps to begin analyzing the conviction.
Among the appeals that will be studied, is that of prosecutor Luciani – who later supported his counterpart before the Cassation – who insisted on the criminal responsibility of Cristina Kirchner against the crime of illicit association as a boss. This represents a sentence of twelve years in prison.
It should be remembered thatJudges Borinsky and Hornos were victims of the hacking of their respective cell phones in September of last year. The federal justice investigates these two cases along with that of the magistrates of the Court that convicted Cristina Kirchner, Andrés Basso and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu, who went through the same situation.
The investigators refer to a possible illegal espionage network that targeted members of the Judiciary.
The appeals that the judges of the Cassation will begin to analyze respond to the foundations of TOF 2 composed of judges Jorge Gorini, Basso and Giménez Uriburu, who maintained that the case was "an act of state corruption of enormous damage."
On December 6, Cristina Kirchner became the first vice president in power with a conviction for corruption. TOF 2 found her responsible for the crime of fraudulent administration to the detriment of the State. The damage caused was estimated at 80,000 million pesos.
In the fundamentals, unanimously, they indicated that the intervention "of members of the highest spheres of the National Executive Power, the National Directorate of Roads and the General Administration of Provincial Roads of the Province of Santa Cruz, in collusion with a construction entrepreneur dedicated to public works, was accredited. " in reference to Báez.
In this regard, they added that the purpose was "to ensure an economic benefit both to this and to the conjugal society integrated by former presidents Néstor Carlos Kirchner and Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner."
The magistrates, in their evaluation of the Kirchners' link with Báez, maintainedthat the presidents stopped controlling the contractor because of the relationship they maintained. "Instead of the relationship of distance and control that should have marked the link between the public and private dimensions, here we have seen a promiscuous and absolute confusion between both spheres."
The ties between the Kirchners and Báez were decisive – indicates the foundations of the sentence – "for the realization of a fraud" in which it predominated to feign facts of legality as bidding processes, administrative decisions that only sought to "ensure and disguise an illegitimate benefit in favor of Cristina Kirchner and Lázaro Báez".
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Martín Soria said that, if it were not for the fact that "there are procedures", they would have dismissed the Supreme Court: "I wish it was like that, we would have done it a long time ago"
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