Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández was convicted and sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office for defrauding the State.
A three-judge panel found her guilty but dismissed the charge of running a criminal organization, so the sentence could have been twelve years in prison.
Cristina Fernández, however, will not go to jail and will be able to continue being an official and candidate in the next elections if she wishes.
The judgment remains final and applies when, according to the new Federal Criminal Procedure Code partially in force, all judicial review instances have been exhausted. That is, when the Supreme Court of Justice rejects the last appeal of the accused. This can take years.
The Prosecutor’s Office accused the vice president of having led an illegal association to direct, together with other officials, million-dollar road works contracts that, according to the complaint, were incomplete, overpriced and even unnecessary.
Cristina Fernández denied the charges during the trial and denounced that it is a political persecution. As she previously stated, this accusation of corruption is unfounded and it is a persecution against her and the political project she represents.
Argentina: Cristina Fernández denounces “lies and defamations” against her
Fernández has called the panel a “firing squad” engaged in a political manhunt aimed at preventing him from running for a third presidential term next year. As vice president and senator, she enjoys immunity from imprisonment.
“This conviction is not a conviction by the laws of the Constitution or the Penal Code,” he said minutes after the verdict was announced. “This is a parallel State and mafia, judicial mafia,” he stressed. And she closed her words by announcing that she will not be a candidate in 2023.
“I am not going to submit to the political force that gave me the honor of being twice president and vice president to be mistreated during the electoral period with a ‘condemned candidate’, with ‘perpetual disqualification’, with ‘fraudulent administration by the state’ (…) Well, I’m not going to be a candidate,” she said. She then insisted that she “is not going to be a candidate for anything” and that her name “is not going to be on any ballot”.
His supporters have vowed to paralyze the country with a national strike. They clogged downtown Buenos Aires and marched toward the federal justice building beating drums and yelling as they pressed against police barriers.
“Away with the judicial mafia”, “Away with corrupt judges”, “Cowards, the judicial district stinks”, could be read on the banners attached to the double security fence that the police installed in front of the courts.
