The Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation rejected a proposal by the defense of the Buenos Aires legislator and former private secretary of Mauricio Macri, Darío Nieto, who had requested that the nullity be declared regarding the kidnapping and the extraction of information from his cell phone in the framework of the causes of course illegal espionage during the management of Together for Change (JxC).
The decision was adopted by room IV of the highest criminal court, which declared the proposal “inadmissible” after considering “the party’s arguments show a mere disagreement with the solution adopted” by the judges in the caseaccording to what emerges from the decision to which Télam agreed.
The statement made by Nieto’s defense, led by lawyer Gervasio Caviglione Fraga, questioned the chain of custody of the cell phone of Macri’s former private secretary and assured that the phone was manipulated when it was no longer in the hands of his client.
Nieto’s cell phone was seized on June 25, 2020 and the next day he was referred from the Criminalistics and Forensic Studies Directorate of the National Gendarmerie to the Judicial Technological Support Division of the Argentine Federal Police to make a forensic copy of the information it contained.
On June 29, 2020, the federal judge of Lomas de Zamora, Federico Villena, entrusted the National Gendarmerie with a new “physical” extraction of that same cell phone.
“Indeed, in the arguments of the party a mere disagreement with the solution adopted by the a quo is observed, lacking its arguments of sufficient aptitude to enable this review instance since the absence of an authentic case of a federal nature prevents submitting the decision appealed to the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation”
Nieto’s defense had remarked that between the two extractions of information a difference was detected that consisted in the opening of a dialog window of the whatsapp application between the users Darío Nieto and Silvia Majdalani, which was empty.
When Nieto’s proposal was rejected by Villena and later by the Federal Chamber of La Plata, it was indicated that the defense had not been able to prove the wrong and it was also pointed out that from the comparative studies of the information that emerged in the file it could be evidenced that there was no alteration.
In Thursday’s ruling, Judges Gustavo Hornos and Javier Carbajo held that “the specific arguments in which the defense supports the appeal filed are based on a discrepancy with the reality that the circumstances previously evaluated show and that were well-foundedly valued by the a quo”.
“Indeed, in the arguments of the party a mere disagreement with the solution adopted by the a quo is observed, lacking its arguments of sufficient aptitude to enable this review instance since the absence of an authentic case of a federal nature prevents submitting the decision appealed to the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation,” they added.
“The defense has not been able to demonstrate in its recursive presentation how the prescriptions established in our fundamental norm have been violated, limiting itself to recounting its own version of the facts without reliably evaluating how the way in which the procedures were carried out questioned imported a specific damage to the accused”, they concluded.
In the case of alleged illegal espionage, Nieto benefited from a lack of merit, since no elements emerged from the file that would allow him to be held responsible for the facts under investigation.
