In just over 48 hours the Federal Oral Court 2 (TOF 2) will read your verdict. At that moment Cristina Kirchner will know if for the first time, she will be convicted in a case of alleged corruption or if they did not find sufficient elements to support a conviction.
Everything will happen this Tuesday after 5:00 p.m. and until then, the secrecy of the judges is imposed in the face of what will be the end of the Highway trial.
Three and a half years, more than 600 hours, a list of 150 witnesses, more than a hundred hearings heldThey are part of the trial that led the vice president to sit in the dock and marked Kirchnerism throughout this time.
Public sector unions have already warned that will paralyze the state if Cristina is sentenced; Social organizations analyze roadblocks and demonstrations.
In La Cámpora and in the Patria Institute they are still evaluating how to react. “For now there is nothing defined, but nothing is ruled out”they said to Clarion in the organization he leads Maximum Kirchner.
The file that the federal judge instructed Julian Ercolini and the prosecutors Ignacio Mahiques Y Gerardo Chickfound the vice responsible for the crimes of illicit association -in the capacity of head- and fraudulent administration to the detriment of the State. Under these two criminal figures, the vice president faced her first oral and public trial.
On August 22, prosecutors Diego Luciani Y Sergio Molathey considered the accusations corroborated and requested a sentence of twelve years in prison for Cristina Kirchner.
The same sentence was requested for Lázaro Báez, as organizer of the illicit association. Under the same criminal figure, they found responsible Julio De Vido, Jose Lopez Already Nelson Perioti (former director of National Highway), for those who required ten years worth.
Beneath this greater degree of responsibility, the representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) accused the former officials of the extinct Ministry of Federal Planning and of the Provincial Highway Directorate in the south, for fraudulent administration and breach of the duties of public officialswith sentences of less than five years.
The defendants defended themselves against all these accusations through their lawyers in the pleadings instance. In an antagonistic reasoning to that of the prosecutors, all demanded acquittal based on the lack of evidence and the non-existence of the crimes attributed.
Now it will be the Court that must decide between these two positions. The judges Rodrigo Gimenez Uriburu, Jorge Gorini Y Andres Basso -whom Cristina Kirchner accused of being a “firing squad”-, know the magnitude of the case: not only because of the extension, complexity and characteristics of the file concentrated on 51 road tenders that Lázaro Báez received, but also, because of the political background .
Cristina Kirchner became the first vice president in office to face a trial for alleged acts of corruption.
A possible condemnation would also become a political fact Transcendent because with the accusation there is a request from the prosecutors for perpetual disqualification from any public office.
For this reason, and for rejecting her commercial ties with Báez while he was systematically imposed as soon as bidding processes were presented, it is that the vice sustains the trial and the case only seeks to outlaw her and stigmatize her political space.
judicial instances
The truth is that in case of having a conviction, it will not be finalized until the recursive instances are exhausted, that is, until appealing to the last instance that can be reached: the Supreme Court of Justice. While all this is happening, Cristina Kirchner You can be a candidate for any position you want.
That analysis, however, is premature. It remains to hear the voice of the judges on Tuesday afternoon. They will only read the criminal responsibility of each of the thirteen defendants and if they have found elements to convict them, what sentence is given to each one.
The foundations of the criteria they adopt, whether to condemn or acquit, will be known only in the first months of 2023 and there the appeals instance will begin.
If the sentence is acquittal, it is the Prosecutor’s Office that can appeal that determination because it was the one that required very high penalties for all those involved in the file.
For these hours, the magistrates are analyzing a “criminal organization” -as defined by the prosecutor Luciani-, which is made up of two main crimes, the illicit association and the fraudulent administration to the detriment of the public administration.
These crimes can exist independently, it is not required to find those accused of one of them responsible to determine that they committed the other crime.
The last weeks in Comodoro P and the discussion focused on the crime of illicit association: A sentence was never handed down to politicians attributing said structure to them.
For the Prosecutor’s Office, there are all the elements that the code imposes to attribute that crime: the organization of two, three or more people, the distribution of roles to commit the crimes, the indeterminate commission of the crimes (which derives in other files). , the permanence in time of the criminal maneuver, the conjunction of wills for all this to happen.
It is the crime to which the Courts impose the greatest resistance in general, some under the premise that it is a very broad criminal figure, others avoiding setting the precedent of advancing in the use of this legal criterion.
It is the prosecutors who most They demand that sentences for illicit association beginamong other aspects, because the penalties for defrauding the State are greater than six years, as well as illicit enrichment.
“It is a way of discouraging the commission of crimes”indicated a high judicial source.
For prosecutor Luciani, judges must decide between justice and corruption.
For the defenders, the same Court must choose between an “immoral sentence or the protection of the rule of law.” The final word will be known on Tuesday.
