Cristina Kirchner will face new trial for corruption
The former Argentine president must go through the courts again, this time for the case of "the notebooks of the coimas"
Former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will have to sit again on the bench of the defendants, this time for the case known as ‘the notebooks of the coimas‘, in which a network of bribes in exchange for public contracts is investigated.
Federal judge Claudio Bonadio ordered this Friday to open an oral proceeding against Fernández de Kirchner, former Planning Minister Julio de Vido and other senior officials of his Administration, as well as against 30 large-scale businessmen.
According to Bonadio, between 2003 and 2015 she and her husband, the late President Nestor Kirchner, “commanded” an “illicit association” dedicated to collecting bribes (coimas) to companies that wanted to contract with the State.
“A system of fundraising to receive illegal money in order to enrich themselves illegally and to use part of those funds in the commission of other crimes, all taking advantage of their position as officials of the Executive Branch”, says Bonadio in his resolution.
The Kirchner’s son, Máximo, was also investigated in this case, although the federal judge decided not to send him to trial, according to local media.
In addition, Bonadio asked the Senate, where Fernández de Kirchner owns a seat, to deprive her of the parliamentary immunity so they can issue the preventive detention order, something he has not yet achieved.
The former Argentine president sat on the bench of the accused for the first time on May 21 for leading a criminal organization to defraud the State by contracting public works in the province of Santa Cruz through frontmen with the Austral Construcciones Group, owned by the Kirchner family. This would have billed 46,000 million Argentine pesos.
K. Tovar
Source: La Nación
