Will Argentina’s Ex-President Be Taken Away in Handcuffs?

One family’s long dominance over Argentina’s power centers may finally end Tuesday, when an appeals court pronounces a verdict in Vice President Cristina Kirchner’s trial on corruption charges. The chief prosecutor in the case, Diego Luciani, is asking for a 12-year prison sentence and for Mrs. Kirchner to be barred from ever holding public office again. He argued that during her time in office, corruption patterns worsened beyond what “unfortunately and sadly ever existed in the country.”An Argentinian lawyer, Guillermo Arias, told the Sun that this is a difficult decision for the judges, as they are dealing with Argentina’s most consequential political persona in recent history. Mrs. Kirchner termed the proceedings a “firing squad.” A left-wing populist, she initially assumed the presidency in 2007 after the death of her husband Nestor, who became president in 2003. She lost an election in 2015, but after four years out of office returned as vice president. In that capacity she is now widely seen as the power behind the current president, Alberto Fernandez. Mrs. Kirchner is accused of running a pyramid scheme between 2007 and 2015, when she allegedly awarded money from state coffers in the form of public contracts to cronies in the province of Santa Cruz. A friend of the Kirchners, Lazaro Baez, who since 2021 has been imprisoned after a conviction on money laundering charges, was the head of the project. Mrs. Kirchner’s trial, which began in May 2019, was interrupted by the pandemic. More than 100 witnesses have testified to date, including her former chief of staff and the current president, who in February said that the way a government distributes public work money is “not prosecutable.”Last week, Mrs. Kirchner said her “final words” in front of the court, accusing the prosecutor of wanting to “stigmatize” her government. The sentence, she said, has been “written against me” from the beginning.“The first time I spoke in front of the court I said it was a lawfare court,” Mrs. Kirchner said. “I must admit I was being generous, this court is a real firing squad.”Mrs. Kirchner then brought up the woman accused of allegedly wanting to murder her earlier this year, Brenda Uliarte, and said that she “believed” that Ms. Uriarte followed the prosecutor, Mr. Luciani, on Facebook or Twitter. “Curious coincidence,” Mrs. Kirchner said.Yet, Mr. Luciani doesn’t have a Twitter or Facebook account, as was reported by an Argentine newspaper, La Nacion, and confirmed by The New York Sun.Lastly, Mrs. Kirchner spoke against her political opposition, including a former president, Mauricio Macri, and said that the people who put the country in debt are “in Qatar, watching the World Cup.” “Do you really think that my government committed fraud against the public?” Mrs. Kirchner said. “My government, who left a country without debt, where living conditions were way better?”Argentina’s current annual inflation rate is 88 percent, as month-to-month prices rose 6.3 percent in October, according to the Argentinian National Institute of Statistics and Census. Annual inflation is expected to reach 100 percent this month, according to the institute, which also reports that more than 36 percent of Argentines live below the poverty line. After a 20-minute speech, Mrs. Kirchner published on her Twitter account a document titled “The 20 lies of the Vialidad case,” aiming to deny the accusations against her and to distance herself from the jailed Baez.On Tuesday afternoon, judges Andres Basso, Jorge Gorini, and Rodrigo Gimenez Uriburu will unveil the verdict that will determine Mrs. Kirchner’s fate. In case of conviction, they will detail what crimes she is guilty of and pronounce penalties. The grounds of the sentence will be released next year.Mrs. Kirchner has been investigated for about a dozen alleged crimes throughout the past decade. Most of them have been dismissed for lack of supporting evidence. At least five cases remain in the trial phase. The current case, known as Vialidad, is in a more “complete state” in the process,” Mr. Arias said. If she is sentenced in this case, La Nacion reckons it could affect another of the cases against her, known as Hotesur y Los Sauces, which is now being reviewed by an appeals court. Mrs. Kirchner and her children, Maximo and Florencia, are accused of receiving money from Baez and businessman Cristobal Lopez, who is also known for being close to the Kirchner family, in exchange for negotiations with the state that were facilitated by the president.

Will Argentina’s Ex-President Be Taken Away in Handcuffs?

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