Updated: Argentine VP Cristina Fernandez guilty, 6 years for fraud

[Eugene]

Last edited Tue Dec 6, 2022, 06:12 PM - Edit history (1)

EDIT: article updated at link

Original AP headline: Argentina awaits VP Cristina Fernández corruption verdict

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Source: Associated Press

Argentine VP Cristina Fernández guilty, 6 years for fraud

By ALMUDENA CALATRAVA
December 6, 2022

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was convicted and sentenced Tuesday to 6 years in prison and a lifetime ban from holding public office for a fraud scheme that embezzled $1 billion through public works projects during her presidency.

A three-judge panel found the Peronist leader guilty of fraud, but rejected a charge of running a criminal organization, for which the sentence could have been 12 years in prison. It’s the first time an Argentine vice president has been convicted of a crime while in office.

The sentence isn’t firm until appeals are decided, a process that could take years. She’ll remains immune from arrest meanwhile, as long as she can keep getting elected.

Speaking after the verdict, she described herself as the victim of a “judicial mafia.”

Her supporters vowed to paralyze the country with a nationwide strike.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-south-america-buenos-aires-argentina-17d4361a9d612a5a39fce125d8cbb20c

[Judi Lynn]

1. This is far more than simple rowdy politics. A man tried to assassinate her recently, up close.

The same fascist vicious people who supported the Dirty War has been after her from the first, even sending police into her house to search it, attacking her children, etc., etc. They have rained hell down upon her since her husband, the highly successful progressive president, Nestor Kirchner, who pulled Argentina out of a deep ditch dug by the previous US-supported President, died suddenly of a heart attack.

The assassination attempt only failed because the would-be assassin's gun, right in her face, jammed at the last moment. She is a brave, courageous woman, obviously NOT a greedy, treacherous human being, never has been.

They also hate her for not being blazing white, like them. They are graceless, soulless, eternal criminals, just like the ones we have here. They have wielded horrendous power, and they don't intend to let go.

On edit: I forgot to mention during the Dirty War, in the 1980's, they tortured, and murdered or disappeared 30,000 political "enemies." They tortured then chained selected prisoners together and threw them out of airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean, or large rivers, including some nuns who protested the kidnapping and torture of young citizens.

The government sent spies into dissent groups protesting the torture and murders to identify them in order to murder them, as well, including grandmothers, as in the group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (area outside the Presidential Palace, where they stood to protest) .



Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

[Judi Lynn]

2. It just occurred to me the Argentine fascists just pulled the Bolsonaro/Lula move on Cristina.

Just as Lula was polling very strongly for the next Presidential race in Brazil, and was manipulated through a corrupt judge, who was later placed in Bolsonaro's cabinet, after Lula was stuck off in prison and couldn't run, Cristina, in addition to nearly losing her life to an assassin a short time ago, has also been judged guilty of fraud, and will be unable to run ini Argentina's next campaign, and is also polling very high with Argentina voters currently.

Both countries have had violent, vicious military coups and dictators, both dictatorship governments supported by Washington. Figures, of course.

[peppertree]

3. Well said, Judi. The evidence (and lack thereof) suggest that's PRECISELY what this was

Take the figure mentioned as the purported "fraud" ($1 billion).

They got that from the total value of all contracts (fed. and prov.) awarded in 2003-15 to Austral Construcciones -
the contractor owned by Kirchner friend Lázaro Báez (but defunct since Macri deliberately bankrupted it in 2016, in hopes of shifting the contracts to ICESA and other Macri-controlled firms).

The figure, thus, assumes the entirety of the proceeds were absconded with - but were they?

A study commissioned by the Macri regime itself found an "unaccountable expenses" rate for Austral of 0.01%. I'd dare anyone to find a highway contractor anywhere in the U.S. with a 0.01% fraud rate.

Báez did later commit tax evasion - but as Macri knows so very well, that's hardly unusual among Argentine CEOs (and unlike Macri, Báez was in fact jailed for that).

Not to mention the $759 million Macri paid in 2016-19 to a consortium led by his own cousin - for a 4-mile rail tunnel that connects nowhere and can't be used at all (but I digress).

The 'fraud' charge was predicated on the idea that Mrs. Kirchner personally steered contracts to Báez. But not one of the 114 witnesses corroborated that - on the contrary, it was refuted (under oath) by even staunch opponents of the Kirchners.

Plus, of course, each contract was approved by Congress - even in the alternative budget proposals presented by the opposition.

Finally, there's the issue of judicial misconduct itself - including prosecutors who presented evidence in their closing arguments (text messages which actually fingered Macri's firms, much more than Báez), the fact that Mrs. Kirchner was denied the right to rebut said evidence, and that the prosecution could not not rebut a single one of her attorney's arguments.

"We don't feel a need to," the prosecutor sniffed.

This is all like something out of Judge Roy Bean's court - or rather, Torquemada.

But then, as you pointed out, Argentina has a long and sordid history of courtroom abuses against figures disliked by elites (and as you know, sometimes worse).

Indeed, this was 'mission accomplished' for them: she has opted out of running for the presidency, or even remaining on President Fernández's ticket (as would've been her right, as this conviction is under appeal).

This leaves Fernández, who's not nearly as popular, to run against Macri (or a surrogate) next year.

And like Brazil in 2018, that's what's it's all about.