The Puebla Group, the forum that brings together progressive Latin American officials and former presidents, warned this Thursday that Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is the victim of a “legal war (lawfare)” in the oral trial for public works in the province of Santa Cruz between the years 2003 and 2015.
“The Puebla Group regrets and rejects the legal war (lawfare) that is being carried out against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in a process riddled with contradictions and motivated by dark political interests of powerful economic conglomerates,” assured the political and academic space in a statement signed by 26 political leaders from Latin America.
In the statement, they also stated that “this case confirms the risky but unfortunately common trend in other cases in Latin America against former presidents such as Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales and Dilma Rousseff, with a common denominator: retaliation for their work on the side of progressivism”.
Lastly, they expressed their “repudiation of this persecution” and they warned “about the serious risks that it entails for Argentine democracy”.
Several former presidents of the region and of Spain signed the document that alludes to the “contradictions” of the oral trial carried out by the Federal Oral Court (TOF) 2, as well as the underlying motivations behind the process.
Among the signatories are the former president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff; the former head of the Government of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero; the former president of Colombia, Ernest Samperand their peers from Ecuador, Rafael Correaand from Paraguay, Fernando Lugo.
Other personalities who signed the document are the former foreign ministers Celso Amorim (Brazil), Ricardo Patino (Ecuador) and Gillaume Long (also from Ecuador), the Minister of Equality of the Spanish Government and representative of Podemos, Irene Montero.
In the list of 26 firms also appear Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); the Chilean benchmark and former presidential candidate for the Progressive Party Marco Enriquez-Ominami; and the former mayor of Montevideo and former candidate for the Presidency of Uruguay for the Broad Front, Daniel Martinez,
Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is being tried in a process in which alleged crimes related to the concession of public works tenders for highways in Santa Cruz between 2003 and 2015 are being investigated, and in which prosecutor Diego Luciani accuses the accused of forming an “illicit association”.
On the accusations made by Luciani, the Vice Minister of Justice Juan Martín Mena said on Tuesday night that it is a “cinematic allegation, too coached and it shows a lot” and accused the prosecutor of following “a script strictly that has nothing to do with the functioning of an oral trial and public”.
