The Argentine justice system dismissed the vice president and former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on Monday in the case that investigated whether during her government she participated in money laundering operations attributed to a businessman close to her.
The federal judge Sebastián Casanello made the decision to end the process against the Peronist leader after days ago the complaints of the Financial Information Unit and the Federal Administration of Public Revenues ruled in that sense after agreeing with the prosecution on the lack of evidence.
With this measure – and taking into account that the prosecutor in the case and the complainant state agencies will not appeal – the accusation was left. However, the former president continues to be investigated in other legal cases for different crimes.
six years in jail
Fernández de Kirchner was sentenced in December to six years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office for defrauding the State during her term (2007-2105). The ruling was appealed by the vice president and her resolution would remain in the hands of the Supreme Court in an unknown period.
Judge Casanello pointed out that “in the face of the request of the accuser and holder of the criminal action to dismiss -accompanied by the rest of the state agencies- the task of the judge is limited to examining the requirements of reasonableness and legality of the request, which in the present case they are satisfied”. He in turn considered that he cannot go beyond what the accusing party has.
Prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan withdrew his accusation against the vice president days ago after receiving a report from the Directorate of Judicial Assistance in Complex Crimes and Organized Crime.
Based on this information – the magistrate limited in his resolution – the prosecutor was able to confirm a meeting at the end of 2010 at the presidential residence where the businessman Lázaro Báez, “when questioned by the then president, denies and hides the illegal expatriation of capital which by then he had been doing”.
million dollar laundering
Báez, close to the vice president and businessman in the construction sector, was sentenced in 2021 to 10 years in prison for laundering millions of dollars obtained illegally.
The southern province of Santa Cruz, where the businessman had his operations and Fernández de Kirchner still owns properties, was the scene of various raids widely publicized by the media in the midst of the investigation.
The investigation into the former president was a section of the case that had Báez as the main defendant. At first she was not among those investigated but in 2016 she was charged by the prosecutor Marijuan, who based it on her statement as repentant of a financier.
However, the prosecutor pointed out at the end of May that he had not obtained sufficient evidence to support the initial accusation and that the multiple contacts between the former president and Báez did not make her responsible for money laundering acts.
Báez received a six-year prison sentence in the same trial in which the vice president was convicted, for being irregularly benefited from the award of 51 public works with national funds in Santa Cruz.