The president, Alberto Fernández, comes out in defense of his ‘number two’ against judicial “persecution”
The Argentine Prosecutor’s Office has requested twelve years in prison and the perpetual disqualification of the vice president, Cristina Fernández, from holding public office, since it considers her responsible for an alleged illegal network to defraud the State through the concession of public works in Santa Cruz.
The Public Ministry estimates at 5,231 million pesos (more than 39 million euros) the amount defrauded by a network that also includes the late husband of the vice president, Néstor Kirchner, and former officials such as former minister Julio de Vido, for whom they have asked for ten years in prison.
Prosecutor Diego Luciani has announced that, with the exception of the businessman Lázaro Báez –against whom twelve years in prison are claimed–, “the impossibility of holding public office will be requested” for all the defendants, including Fernández, who has always She has alleged that the multiple legal cases opened against her are part of a political persecution.
“Her status as president of the nation at the time of the events means that she has defrauded the State and her voters,” said the prosecutor. “She interposed her personal interest over the public interest,” Luciani said, she lamented, according to the newspaper ‘La Nación’.
The vice president is not present in this part of the process, since she has been exempted by her current position, but from Twitter she has announced by surprise that she has requested to testify again this Wednesday, given that the prosecutors “assembled issues in her accusation that never had been raised.”
After the request for the sentence by the Prosecutor’s Office, the president, Alberto Fernández, has said in a statement that “today is a very unpleasant day” for someone like him, with experience in Law, and has conveyed his “affection and solidarity to Fernandez.
The Government as a whole has joined the vice president’s thesis on the existence of a “judicial and media persecution” against her, alleging that “none of the acts has been proven” and there is an attempt to put Justice “at the service of the powers that be”.
It is expected that the final arguments of the defenses will start on September 5 and that the sentence will be known already in December. However, a hypothetical conviction would foreseeably give rise to a chain of resources and the sentence could not be final for several years, which would suspend both the disqualification and a possible entry into prison.
