The Financial Information Unit (UIF) anticipated that it will request the acquittal of all the defendants in the trial for alleged irregularities with public works in Santa Cruz between 2003 and 2015, arguing that there is not “sufficient certainty” to affirm the existence of overpricing and illicit association
“There is not enough certainty in the debate to affirm the existence of price premiums in the analyzed works”said the FIU lawyer Leandro Ventura, ruling out an accusation for the crimes of fraud and illicit association.
He did so at the beginning of the final arguments of the debate where 13 defendants are tried, including Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
The lawyers of the agency, which is the plaintiff in the case, began their presentation before the Federal Oral Court 2 warning that the FIU should have abandoned its accusatory role in the case assumed by the previous administration in 2017, because “money laundering” is not being investigated. active”.
The FIU alluded to a “state of insurmountable doubt”, for which it anticipated that it will request the “acquittal of all the accused regarding the criminal type of fraudulent administration”.
Not being able to “prove the existence of a fraud”, the complaint questioned another of the crimes that are aired in the trial, the illicit association.
“Result impossible to prove the existence of a criminal association“, added the body.
The FIU requested rule out an expertise considered “key” on the works questioned for “inconsistencies and lack of clarity”.
The complaint anticipated that it only considered proven in some cases the crime of breach of duties of a public official.
first hearing
The vice president connected remotely to the Zoom of the Federal Oral Court 2 to listen to the start of the FIU’s argument, as did other defendants such as the former Minister of Planning Julio De Vido, the businessman Lázaro Báez and the former Secretary of Public Works José López .
From the headquarters of Comodoro Py 2002, Judge Jorge Gorini of TOF2 declared the first hearing of allegations open at 9:30 a.m., after verifying that the 13 defendants were connected with cameras turned on to the trial that, as a result of the pandemic, is being carried out virtually from August 2020.
The Court is made up of judges Jorge Gorini, Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu and Andrés Basso.
The trial debates whether the accused businessman Lázaro Báez benefited in an anomalous way from the award of 51 public road works in Santa Cruz during the Kirchner administrations and whether there were overprices, unjustified delays or unfinished work.
In addition to the vice president, Báez, De Vido and José López, another of those accused of alleged illicit association and fraud is the former director of National Roads Nelson Periotti.
Former officials of the National Highway Administration and the Santa Cruz delegation of that organization are also judged, among them Carlos Kirchner, Mauricio Collareda and Abel Fatala.
According to the prosecutor’s accusation, companies belonging to the “Austral Construcciones” group of Báez were awarded 51 public road works in that province in the south of the country with alleged overpricing and lack of capacity to carry them out.
