The defense of Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner asked the Federal Court of Cassation to confirm the decision to close the so-called “Hotesur-Los Sauces” case due to the absence of a crime, with dismissals and without an oral trial.
“The evidence incorporated into the case corroborates, outside of any possible discussion and without the need to carry out an oral trial, that the facts do not satisfy any criminal classification. For this reason, the dismissal issued must be confirmed”, stated the lawyers Carlos Beraldi and Ary Llernovoy in a 62-page brief to which Télam had access.
In the so-called “brief notes” presented before Chamber I of the country’s highest criminal court, They requested that the appeal of the prosecution be rejected and that the decision of the Federal Oral Court 5 that dismissed all the accused be ratified without reaching the trial stage.
The arguments of the Public Prosecutor’s Office “lack all logical and legal support and, therefore, must be dismissed,” they warned.
The arguments of the Public Prosecutor’s Office “lack all logical and legal support and, therefore, must be dismissed,” they warned
The members of Chamber I of Cassation, Diego Barroetaveña, Daniel Petrone and Ana María Figueroa The second virtual hearing was held at 12:30 p.m. to listen to the parties, which was brief because most of those scheduled for this date presented briefs.
In this way They were in a position to resolve if they confirm the decision of the Federal Oral Court 5 that closed the case due to the non-existence of a crime when preparing the trial.
Now, the Federal Chamber of Cassation has 20 business days to make its sentence known.
Now, the Federal Chamber of Cassation has 20 business days to announce its sentence
In their “memorial”, the defenders of the former president asked that “the appealed decision be confirmed, as soon as it ordered the dismissal of our clients, due to the absence of a crime.”
The lawyers appeared for the defense of the former president, her children Máximo and Florencia Kirchner, Romina Mercado and Patricio Pereyra Arandía.
The letter alluded to the application of the most benign criminal law in terms of money laundering made by the TOF5 when it closed the case, although it was ruled out that this crime had been committed and it was also reiterated that there is a “multiple prosecution” criminal to the former president.
Also, The defense maintained that the dismissals must be confirmed based on new evidence incorporated.
“Specifically, we refer to the extension of the expert study that was carried out in the framework of the case “Los Sauces”in which the intervening experts unanimously and categorically affirmed that all the payments made by Valle Miter SA, Inversora M&S SA and Alcalis de la Patagonia SAIC in favor of Los Sauces SA-without exception, were bankized and were made through the delivery of checks or through bank transfers”, they remarked.
This “new evidence also made it possible to verify that the facts” do not satisfy “the typical requirements required by the criminal type provided for in article 303 of the Penal Code”, money laundering.
“If one takes into account that all the money applied to the investigated lease contracts always moved within the financial and institutional circuit, that said funds were duly accounted for, that the balance sheets of the companies involved were audited by internationally renowned companies and, Furthermore, since all relevant taxes were paid, the money laundering hypothesis is legally unsustainable,” they concluded.
Regarding the power of the Oral Court to resolve not to proceed to trial, the lawyers considered that if the prosecution is empowered to “apply non-regulated opportunity criteria and apply for dismissals without holding the oral trial when they consider that the facts denounced lack relevance criminal law, the judges that make up the Oral Courts are also empowered to dismiss the defendants without the need to go through the debate hearing if they arrive at that same conviction”.
On the other hand, he questioned the prosecutor Mario Villar, who in the first hearing before Cassation on November 10, demanded to revoke the dismissals and order that the oral trial be carried out.
The defense of the Vice President alluded to a “thoughtless proceeding of the representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, who accommodate argumentative lines according to conjunctural conveniencespretending to erase with their elbow what they themselves write with their hands”.
The prosecution incurred in “serious and ostensible contradictions” and “it has not been specified, even minimally, what would be the different crimes of money laundering that only now, after the issuance of a dismissal and during the processing of an appeal, are imputed to our clients”.
In the case, the Oral Court dismissed the former president, her children Máximo and Florencia and businessmen who contracted rentals in properties or hotel rooms in “Los Sauces” and “Hotesur”, belonging to the Kirchner family.
In the case, the Oral Court dismissed the former president, her children Máximo and Florencia and businessmen who contracted rentals in properties or hotel rooms in “Los Sauces” and “Hotesur”, belonging to the Kirchner family
Among those dismissed are the businessmen Lázaro Báez, Cristóbal López and Fabián de Sousa and also Romina de los Ángeles Mercado, and Osvaldo Sanfelice,
Prosecutor Villar maintained that there was “arbitrariness” in the decision of two TOF5 votes, those of Daniel Obligado and Adrián Grunberg, against one in the minority – that of Judge Adriana Palliotti – that the court took to order the dismissals of all the accused .
