The Federal Oral Court 2 sentenced this Tuesday Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to 6 years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office, after declaring her guilty of fraudulent administration in the case that investigated the alleged routing of public road works in Santa Cruz in favor of the businessman Lázaro Báez between 2003 and 2015.
“This is a parallel State and judicial mafia”stressed the vice president in a message to the Argentines that she gave through her social networks as soon as the sentence was known.
The TOF 2 too acquitted by majority the former president and the rest of the defendants for the crime of illicit association for which the trial prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola accused them.
The fundamentals the verdict issued by the judges Jorge Gorini, Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu and Andrés Basso will be made known March 9 of next yeardate from which the parties may present their appeals.
The sentence will become final when all instances have been exhausted, that is, when the Supreme Court responds to all the proposals that come to it.
All decisions made by judges
The TOF 2 also condemned the businessman baez to 6 years in prison as a necessary participant in fraudulent administration, while the former Secretary of Public Works,Jose Lopez and the former director of National Highway Nestor Periotti He handed down the same penalty as co-perpetrators of the crime, for which reason he also ordered their perpetual disqualification from holding public office in relation to them.
Of the thirteen defendants in this case, three were acquitted: the former Minister of Federal Planning Julio De Vidothe former Undersecretary of Public Works Abel Fatala and the former president of the General Administration of Roads Province of Santa Cruz (AGVP), Hector Garro.
Meanwhile, the former undersecretary of Coordination of Federal Public Works Carlos Santiago Kirchner was dismissed due to extinction of the criminal action. He had been accused of alleged breach of duties as a public official.
Commodore Py woke up fenced
The Comodoro Py building 2002 woke up with strong security measuresdouble fenced, only one enabled access and two hundred police officers assigned to custody.
The Explosives Brigade was also assigned to the place and Labrador retrievers toured the courtroom that from 9:30 am the judges Jorge Gorini, Andrés Basso and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu destined the audience to hear the last words of the accused former president of Vialidad Santa Cruz Juan Carlos Villafañe and in which they announced the verdict for 5:30 p.m.
the last hearing
The last hearing of the trial opened punctually at 9:30 a.m. after the three judges entered the room, guarded by police officers assigned to Comodoro Py’s security and without making statements to the press.
The only one who manifested himself upon arriving at the building at the entrance enabled by Latvia street was judge Gorini, who, consulted by radio Miter, only pondered that “the trial was made and came to an end.”
Villafañe, a former president of the General Administration of Provincial Roads of Santa Cruz, was last in the schedule for the final words and it was his turn to speak at the closing of the debate, something he did through Zoom for 40 minutes.
The former official, now retired, demanded his acquittal and denied having committed crimes by stating that “if he had known that what we were doing had any appearance of being illegal, he would have been the first to act immediately so that it did not happen.”
The prosecution’s requests
The prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola asked that the former president be sentenced to 12 years in prison as the alleged head of an illicit association and fraudulent administration.
For the businessman Lázaro Báez, the prosecutor’s office also claimed 12 years in prison as the alleged perpetrator of aggravated illicit association due to his capacity as organizer and primary participant in aggravated fraudulent administration.
Also, They requested ten years in prison for the former Minister of Planning Julio De Vido and the former director of National Highway Nelson Periotti, and six years for Mauricio Collareda and Juan Villafañe, former officials of the organization.
For Héctor Daruich and Raúl Pavesi, meanwhile, it took five years, and four years for Abel Fatala and José Santibáñez.
As for Carlos Kirchner, the two prosecutors postulated his acquittal for illicit association and a two-year suspended sentence for abuse of authority.
In the oral trial, the alleged directing of 80 percent of the national public road works in Santa Cruz in favor of Báez companies between 2003 and 2015 was discussed, in addition to alleged overpricing and lack of controls in the event of non-compliance.
At the last hearing this week, the Vice President exercised her right to speak in her closing remarks before the judges and maintained that the Court is a “firing squad” that he has a “written” sentence for “non-existent” facts, as part of a “disciplinary activity” to “stigmatize a political space.”
The judgment throughout these years
The trial for the alleged addressing of the public works in Santa Cruz between 2003 and 2015 in favor of Báez companies began in May 2019 in the federal courts of Retiro, was interrupted for six months by the pandemic and resumed virtually in August 2020, without ever recovering full face-to-face.
For more than three and a half years, the Tribunal heard 114 witnesses in 117 hearings where the complaint filed by the former head of National Highway in the macrismo, Javier Iguacel, linked to irregularities in 51 public road works awarded to Báez companies in Santa Cruz was discussed.
Among the witnesses were President Alberto Fernández, Minister of Economy Sergio Massa and all those who, like them, served as Chiefs of Cabinet in the governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner.
Also businessmen in the construction industry linked to public works such as the cousin of former president Mauricio Macri, Angelo Calcaterra and Juan Chediak.
At the end of the testimonial stage, the arguments began and one of the complaints, that of the Financial Information Unit, did not formulate an accusation for understanding that there was no crime while the Anti-Corruption Office withdrew from that role last June.
The prosecution argued for nine daysat the end of which it specified the requests for conviction and forfeiture of more than 5,300 million pesos that it considered there was economic damage”.
At the time of the verdict, the judges must also decide whether to grant this request and another to investigate whether the companies Petersen, Thiele, Esuco SA and Equimac were part of alleged “maneuvers” to simulate competition in the tenders in which the Baez group.
Besides, andThe TOF2 must resolve the nullity proposals of the defenses, including the use as evidence of messages obtained from the cell phone of the former Secretary of Public Works José López in the framework of another case open penalty against him.
In their arguments, the defenses of all the defendants demanded an acquittal for the non-existence of a crime.
