Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, photographed on September 30, 2021. JUAN MABROMATA (AFP)
There are 14 people in the photo. They are wearing football shirts and hugging and smiling at the camera. On the far left in the second row is Diego Luciano. Center right Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu. The first is the prosecutor responsible for prosecuting former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is accused of creating an illegal association to defraud the state. The second is the chairman of the tribunal, who must decide whether the Luciani Inquiry proves Kirchner’s guilt. The photo in question shows an amateur team called Liverpool, which regularly take part in the football tournaments organized by former President Mauricio Macri at Los Abrojos, his weekend home. “everything goes with everything” Kirchner wrote on his social networks Sunday night. This Monday, his lawyers demanded that both prosecutor Luciani and judge Giménez Uriburu be removed from the trial.
Argentina’s penal code states that “the judge must refrain from hearing the case” if “he has close friendship or apparent enmity with any of the interested parties”. The official Pagina 12 newspaper published the photo of the football team with the caption “Comrades, we have always been partners”. The vice president has responded to this on her networks as evidence of what she believes to be a legal prosecution being orchestrated by the macrismo. “Page/12 proves that the illegal connection belongs to them. The President of the Court and the Prosecutor of the Public Works case are playing soccer at Mauricio Macri’s country house,” he wrote. Carlos Beraldi, Kirchner’s attorney, submitted a brief to the court Monday minutes before the start of Prosecutor Luciani’s fourth day of trial.
Everything goes with everything. Today, Página/12 proves that the illegal association belongs to them. The President of the Court and the Prosecutor of the Public Works case play football at Mauricio Macri’s country house. Maid Llorens is on the “same team” but he missed the game that day. pic.twitter.com/Bl1mLMKXUy
— Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) August 8, 2022
“This personal relationship, kept confidential at all times, should have been formally communicated to the defense – and indeed to society at large – once this case of unique institutional and media importance was filed in this court,” wrote attorney Beraldi. “Moving forward a case as a prosecutor for a fellow judge to solve is not harmless behavior from a legal point of view, especially when it comes to a representative of the prosecution who attaches so much importance to ensuring transparency in the exercise of the public Matter. Does it seem reasonable to you that the prosecuting prosecutor and the judge charged with trying Cristina Fernández de Kirchner play football matches in nothing short of the fifth of Mauricio Macri, whose government promoted the same cause and became the plaintiff? .
The defense’s intention is that both the prosecuting party and the judge withdraw from the case and the entire investigation be dismissed. Luciani has been particularly tough on the vice president since he started reading her newspaper last week. He accused her of leading an illegal association set up to siphon funds from the nation-state “from the top of power.” He referred to an “extraordinary” corruption structure. And he explained a well-oiled mechanism whereby businessman Lázaro Báez, now jailed for money laundering, was awarded public works contracts worth millions in Santa Cruz province, the political cradle of Kirchnerism, in return.
Both Judge Uriburu and the prosecutor have already announced that they will not withdraw from the case. Luciani asked to respond “orally” to the request from the former president’s defense. They will have to wait for defense attorneys for two other defendants to make their own claims.