The judge Julieta Makintachchallenged last May while integrated the court that advanced the trial for the death of the former soccer player Diego Armando Maradona -For participating in a documentary about the case-, he will be submitted to a political trial for his actions in said judicial process, according to the jury in charge of evaluating the accusations against the magistrate.
The jury of prosecution to magistrates of the Legislature of the Province of Buenos Aires dismissed on Tuesday the resources presented by Makintach’s lawyer and declared the likelihood of the charges, by formally admitting the accusation against him. In addition, the jury arranged a 40 % seizure of the judge’s salary.
Makintach, a member of the Oral Criminal Court number 2 of the town of San Isidro, in the province of Buenos Aires, thus faces possible dismissal, after being initially suspended for ninety days at the end of May, after unleashing a scandal for his participation in a documentary about the trial for the death of Maradona, on which he had to fail. Weeks later, in July, the prosecution jury decreed the preventive and indefinite departure of the Togada.
The process, which sought to assign responsibilities for the death of the Argentine star, which occurred in 2020, had begun on March 11 of this year and registered a total of 21 hearings and 44 testimonial statements, but was annulled on May 29 by Makintach’s challenge two days before.
A declared trial void
After the challenge, the Prosecutor’s Office and the lawyers of almost all the parties argued “horizontal pollution” and requested the separation of the other two judges of the court, Maximiliano Savarino and Verónica Di Tomasso, who accepted the request and decreed the nullity of the trial.
Makintoch had presented the resignation of his position in a letter addressed to the provincial governor Axel Kicillof, a measure that has not entered into force for the beginning of the investigation that led to the imminent political trial. In the letter, the lawyer explained that the decision of the resignation “is registered in the context of the audience acts that have generated a deep institutional and social impact, with unwanted consequences.”
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After the cancellation of the first trial, the Argentine justice began a new process on July 18 with a new court, with the aim of determining whether eight health professionals are guilty of simple homicide for the death of the former soccer player. The debate, however, has not begun so far, due to procedural issues and the disagreement of the lawyers of at least one of the defendants with the formation of the new court.
