The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, demanded this Monday the opening of a criminal investigation into an alleged trip between judges, prosecutors and media businessmen, after the dissemination of messages in which they agreed on strategies to hide it.
The president gave the message on national television on the eve of the verdict of a trial against Vice President Cristina Kirchner for alleged corruption during his presidential terms (2007-2015).
"I have decided to instruct the Minister of Justice to appear before the Public Prosecutor’s Office and to request that the facts related to the trip in question and related to its financing be criminally investigated."accurate.
According to the president, "it hurts democracy to see the anti-republican promiscuity with which some businessmen, some judges, some prosecutors and some officials move. So far they have felt unpunished. It’s time for them to start being held accountable for their behaviors.".
Fernández used the national chain "because it is evident that a large part of the private media system has decided not to report what happened on that unique trip to Lago Escondido"said.
The controversy originated in a trip made on October 13 to Lago Escondido, a paradisiacal place in Argentine Patagonia, in which judges, prosecutors, businessmen and the justice minister of the Buenos Aires mayor’s office participated, in the hands of the opposition , according to a note in the Página/12 newspaper that made it public four days later.
The travelers, who flew in a private plane, stayed in the millionaire’s cottage British Joe Lewis, owner of thousands of hectares in the south of the country.
This weekend a series of messages came to light from a chat on the Telegram platform in which the alleged participants of that trip agreed on a strategy to avoid dissemination and hide the origin of the financing, as can be seen from the audios and texts. disseminated through various media.
Some proposed the presentation of apocryphal invoices, montages of photographs, threats and other tricks.
"It seems evident that the trip existed. And everything seems to indicate that, knowing that the event had become news, those who would have participated in it were concerned about the real risk of being involved in a series of crimes such as receiving gifts and breaching the duties of a public official."warned the president.
The mayor of Buenos Aires, Horacio RodrÃguez Larreta, supported his Minister of Justice, Marcelo D’Alessandro, and assured that he is available to justice.
"We are facing a new operation of Kirchnerism that uses the manipulation of information and illegal espionage. They try to distract attention from important issues and create the feeling that we are all the same"wrote RodrÃguez Larreta on Twitter.