The prosecutor before the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires, José Luis Agüero Iturbe,
supported the request of his colleague Carlos Stornelli to have full access
to the telephone communications of the former deputy director general of Taxpayer Services of the Federal Administration of Public Revenues (AFIP) and leader of La Cámpora,
Néstor Fabián “Conu” Rodríguez
.
In a controversial measure, Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi had refused to give the entire content of an expert opinion on the “Conu” cell phone
to Stornelli, with whom he has had a series of strong disagreements.
The judge maintained that “information that is relevant and useful for this investigation will be made available to the parties.
This,
in order to protect the constitutional right to privacy of Rodríguez and his family
.”
The expertise of the “Conu” cell phone is key because
it requested and paid with AFIP funds in 2022 to the inorganic spy Ariel Zanchetta – imprisoned and prosecuted in the case for spying on judges and prosecutors – for reports on the former Minister of Development Social Victoria Tolosa Paz who was in conflict with La Cámpora
.
And the investigative statement to which it will be subjected depends on its content.
The case is investigating
an organization
in which Zanchetta, “Conu” Rodríguez and ultra-K deputy Rodolfo Tailhade would participate to spy on judges and prosecutors who are investigating former president Cristina Kirchner for corruption, such as the Roads case.
Now the final decision rests with Chamber II of the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires.
In a resolution, Agüero Iturbe maintained that the “access that corresponds to this Public Ministry to the case and to the evidence – which is complete – is not available to the parties and neither is it available to the judge, even if he is the director of the process,
"Well, this does not enable him to issue praetorian resolutions that are totally removed from the legal norms that must govern all criminal proceedings
."
“Much
less arbitrary or those that curtail and limit the intervention of the Prosecutor's Office
in the process, as an obligated party that it is and violating the right of defense that also protects the Public Ministry,” he added.
He then considered the judge's ruling to be “
unfounded”
“since after the use of a justification it only apparently
prevents
the representative of the Public Ministry from exercising the role that by legal imperative corresponds to him in the process.”
And “it is that without any reason today
access
to the evidence previously agreed is prevented without an act, fact or circumstance that allows the criterion of the decree of December 15, 2023 to be varied” which did allow access to the prosecutor.
Prosecutor Carlos Stornelli in TN Buenos Aires Carlos Stornelli prosecutor television program political guest
“Thus, the appealed act only finds support
in the mere will of the magistrate
.
"The result puts in doubt the powers of the Public Prosecutor's Office by making it impossible to access the evidence in order to fulfill its specific function," added the prosecutor before the federal chamber.
In December, the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires declared
the "nullity" of Martínez De Giorgi's ruling that removed federal prosecutor Stornelli from this case
investigating illegal espionage of magistrates and judicial officials.
In a single decision, chambermaid Martín Irurzun declared the "nullity" of the decision made two days ago, on December 12, by the judge in the case Marcelo Martínez De Giorgi and which had been appealed by Stornelli.
Irurzun considered that the ruling that ordered Stornelli to be removed because the prosecutor had asked to be a plaintiff in the case
"was based on apparent foundations and lacks normative support; it is, therefore, null
. "
The decision made ex officio by the judge in the case after Stornelli's appointment "lacks legal motivation," added Irurzun and therefore "must be annulled."
In the resolution, the judge of Chamber II of the Court of Appeals recalled that Stornelli had asked to be a plaintiff last November, something that was not resolved and then, upon being appointed as prosecutor in charge of the investigation, he asked "to certify
the entirety of the information extracted from the devices seized" from Zanchetta and annexes to classified reports.
"The next day, the judge decided ex officio to remove him to intervene as a representative of the Public Ministry," he recalled.
That decision was adopted "based on a presentation that was clearly made on the basis of "journalistic information", in ignorance of "the reasons and evidence" and "as the appellant alleged - without expression of reasons."
After reviewing the files of the case, Stornelli stated
that he did not consider himself included in any of the objective causes of excuse and recusal that could separate him from the investigation.
Martínez De Giorgi removed the prosecutor ex officio to preserve the "guarantees of impartiality and objectivity" that the judicial process must have,
The judge recalled that prosecutor Stornelli had presented himself as a plaintiff in the file, invoking that "in the devices seized from the accused Ariel Zanchetta there were, presumably, intelligence reports linked to him.
Prosecutor Stornelli responded a few hours later with an appeal in which he expressed his "astonishment" and assured that "the ruling put into crisis is of extreme institutional gravity, since it overwhelms - perhaps as never seen before - the autonomy of the Public Ministry Fiscal".
Stornelli maintained that, with his decision, the judge established himself "as a kind of assembly or superintendence of the fiscal magistrates, deciding, for an empire that was attributed but that does not exist, which prosecutor should represent the accusing body, and which one isn't."
Martínez de Giorgi, federal judge.
Stornelli had been appointed in December to intervene in the case in which the alleged espionage of judges is being investigated, in which his colleague Gerardo Pollicita excused himself,
when Martínez De Giorgi decided to add to the file a complaint against the ultra K deputy Rodolfo Tailhade.
To excuse himself, Pollicita said that in 2018 Tailhade published a series of posts on the then social network Twitter linked to him, with his photograph and this led to the decision to excuse himself in all cases that were linked to the national deputy.
One of these investigations was initiated by a complaint against Tailhade presented by the former Buenos Aires Minister of Justice and Security Marcelo D'Alessandro, following the dissemination by the deputy of the content of the chat of a Telegram group, obtained by hacking the phone. cell phone of the then official.
For this case, Tailhade was accused by Martínez de Giorgi.