After the sentence imposed on her, the vice president announced that she would not be running in the 2023 presidential election.
Fearless, elegant and with the strength that characterizes her, Cristina Fernández Kirchner listened to the verdict in her Senate office.
The Federal Court of Justice 2 sentenced her to six years in prison and permanent removal from office for state fraud. However, they acquitted her of the crime of unlawful association, which carries a penalty of up to 12 years.
Judges Andrés Basso, Jorge Gorini and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu also handed down sentences for the other defendants, 13 in all.
They sentenced Lázaro Báez, José López, Nelson Periotti to six years in prison; five years for Juan Carlos Villafañe; four for José Santibañez and Mauricio Collareda; four and six months for Raúl Pavesi, among others.
They also acquitted the first three of the crime of tortious association.
Minutes after hearing the verdict, Cristina responded to each of the allegations. In a live broadcast on YouTube, the world once again saw this woman’s direct and clear word to a right crowd who feared her.
Yes, he fears his ability to be called up, his national and international prestige, his temperament that Fernández de Kirchner has been the most important political figure in the South American country since 2007, when the presidential sash was first donned.
“The conviction was written (…) It is clear that the idea was to condemn me, as they finally did,” he said.
A day earlier, on Monday, he told the Brazilian newspaper Folha do São Paulo: “You will announce the verdict on the 6th. On the 7th, “cristina condemned” appears on the front pages of the newspapers. There were no surprises.
«They condemn me because they condemn a model of economic development and the recognition of people’s rights, therefore they condemn me. But the punishment isn’t six years or jail, the real punishment they impose is permanent disqualification from elected political office, although all the offices I’ve voted for have always been by popular vote,” he said.
He recalled the four governments surnamed Kirchner won in the name of Peronism in 2003, 2007, 2011 and his contribution to the 2019 victory. “You condemn me for that,” he stressed.
the case inside
Cristina assured – and the world knows it – that the verdict was all political and nothing judicial. “The strange thing is that the conviction is for fraudulent administration,” he said.
Both the vice president herself and her defense – led by Carlos Beraldi – have repeatedly stressed throughout the three years of the trial that she has no control over the law, this matter is in the hands of MPs and Senators.
They also failed to meet the budget, since the 1994 constitutional reform made it the responsibility of the chief of staff. “Curiously, the heads of cabinet only testified as witnesses. And that doesn’t mean they were guilty because throughout the trial it was proven that none of the lies told by prosecutors Luciani and Mola were true,” he stressed.
Then she asked herself emphatically: “To my fraudulent administration? And the yellow ones who owed us $45 billion and are leaving today on Clarin Orondos planes.”
This Argentine media consortium installed in society the idea that Kirchner was guilty regardless of the verdict, a strategy that polarized Argentine society to limits not seen since the return to democracy in 1983.
Fernández de Kirchner also attacked the complicity of the media. The agreements of the media, he ironized, are necessary to “make unfounded judgments”.
a parallel state
“This verdict is not a sentence according to the laws of the Basic Law or the Criminal Code,” said Kirchner minutes after the verdict was read out. “It’s a parallel between the state and the mafia, the judicial mafia,” he shot.
Cristina was referring to recently leaked news in which the investigating magistrate of the case, Julián Ercolini, and a group of judges, prosecutors, opposition politicians and major media entrepreneurs are negotiating among themselves how to use lies to conceal a trip to Patagonia in October, in the estate of the English Billionaire Joe Lewis.
Also involved in the messages are Pablo Yadarola, Carlos Mahiques and Pablo Cayssials; Attorney General of the City of Buenos Aires Juan Bautista Mahiques; the Minister of Security of the City of Buenos Aires, Marcelo D’Alessandro; and, among others, two directors of Grupo Clarín.
They were published by the newspapers Tiempo Argentino, Perfil and the web portal El Cohete a la Luna from the cell phone line hacking of one of the participants. The illegal origin of the source prevents it from being used as evidence in court.
Those involved are concerned about the publication in the newspaper Página 12 of a paid trip they took on October 13 by private plane to Bariloche to spend a few nights at English billionaire Joe Lewis’ ranch on Lake Escondido.
Lewis is close to former President Mauricio Macri, whose ranch is an old acquaintance of Argentines, as the businessman decided to prevent tourists from entering the lake.
In the exchange, the participants – who call themselves “the Huemules” – analyze whether to respond to journalists who call them to confirm the trip and discuss various strategies to pass it off as a shared getaway they’re dating have paid in their own pocket.
The trip “is the confirmation of a semi-governmental system in which the freedom of life of Argentines is decided. The judge family at their best. That’s the system that works under the pompous figure of the judiciary,” Kirchner said.
They are all men, as are those of the military juntas and the Olivos Pact, he noted. “But I will never be their pet, not even if they give me 20 years,” he said.
“They’re going to put me in jail unless some Caputos in life sponsor a fringe group and shoot me. That’s what they want for me: in jail or dead,” he said, referring to chat moguls.
I will not run
But barring the conviction, there’s no way Fernández de Kirchner will go to jail.
First, because she has privileges thanks to her position as vice president. For this reason, she should first face a political process to be removed from the office to which she was elected, whose term expires on December 10, 2023.
In addition, their lawyers will appeal any guilty verdict, requiring the verdict to go to the Criminal Court of Cassation for review. The final phase will be decided before the Supreme Court, but it is a process that can take several years.
Another reason the former President could not be arrested immediately is that she will be 70 next February and the law grants any convicted person over that age the benefit of house arrest.
As long as the verdict is not final, Fernández de Kirchner does not have to submit to disqualification. In other words, you can run for any public office in next year’s general election if you wish.
However, she announced that she would not run for these elections. “Very good news for you, Héctor Magnetto, because on December 10, 2023 I will have no privileges and you will be able to order your henchmen to put me in prison. But your pet, never,” Cristina photographed the Clarín group magnate while her gaze was on the camera.