Buenos Aires, Argentina – Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has delivered a fiery closing phrase in her defence, calling corruption allegations towards her a “staged fable designed to pull me by the hair to this trial”.
In closing arguments earlier than a federal court docket on Friday, Argentina’s highly effective vp additionally linked the judicial proceedings to an assassination try on her earlier this month, and recommended that a few of the individuals behind the September 1 assault have but to be apprehended.
“Till the primary of September, I believed that this was all about stigmatising me, banning me, denigrating me, defaming me. However as of the primary of September, I realised that there could also be one thing else behind all this,” she mentioned.
“It’s just like the judicial sphere is giving social licence in order that anybody can suppose or do something.”
Friday’s listening to got here simply weeks after a person pointed a revolver at Fernandez de Kirchner’s head amid a crowd of supporters who had rallied exterior her Buenos Aires residence in a present of assist amid the corruption case. The attacker pulled the set off, however the gun didn’t fireplace.
The assassination try drew widespread condemnation but it surely has had a negligible impact on the general public’s opinion of Fernandez de Kirchner, with polls this month pegging her optimistic picture ranking at between 24 and 34 p.c.
Throughout her handle to the court docket, Fernandez de Kirchner made some extent of calling the individuals now accused within the assassination try the “materials authors” – saying that “nobody can suppose that that group deliberate” or “have been the mental authors” of the assault.
The accused gunman, Fernando Andre Sabag Montiel, 35, has been charged with tried homicide, alongside along with his 23-year-old girlfriend Brenda Uliarte. Two different individuals have additionally been arrested.
The case
Friday marked the final alternative for Fernandez de Kirchner to defend herself earlier than a panel of three judges in Buenos Aires.
She is charged with main “a bootleg organisation” and “aggravated fraudulent administration” in a case that covers a interval between 2003 and 2015 throughout which she and her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, occupied the presidency of Argentina.
Prosecutors say that in her years on the helm, from 2007 to 2015, Fernandez de Kirchner illegally helped direct state funds into public roadworks contracts that have been awarded to corporations owned by an affiliate of the Kirchners within the southern province of Santa Cruz, which is their political stronghold.
A complete of 51 contracts have been awarded to corporations owned by Lazaro Baez, who’s amongst 12 different individuals charged within the roadworks case. Baez was convicted of cash laundering in a separate case final yr.
“When Nestor Kirchner took over the presidency of the nation, and later his spouse … they put in and maintained throughout the nationwide and provincial administration of Santa Cruz, one of the vital extraordinary corruption matrixes that sadly and sadly ever existed within the nation,” lead prosecutor Diego Luciani mentioned in his remarks final month.
Estimating that $926m was defrauded by the state, Luciani has requested the court docket to condemn Fernandez de Kirchner to 12 years in jail for her function within the alleged scheme and to impose a lifetime ban on her holding public workplace.
That triggered large demonstrations in assist of her exterior her residence, together with the one throughout which the assassination try happened.
Political implications
In court docket on Friday, Carlos Beraldi, Fernandez de Kirchner’s lawyer, went by means of the allegations made by prosecutors that he mentioned aren’t backed up by the info.
Utilizing witness testimony from the trial, he refuted claims that highway works weren’t accomplished, overpriced or delayed. He additionally mentioned the price of the alleged fraud was not a severe estimate. “Cristina Kirchner by no means issued any directive associated to the works beneath investigation,” mentioned Beraldi.
Fernandez de Kirchner mentioned the prosecutors on this case must be investigated for the “unimaginable lies” that they propagated, including that allegations that she headed up a bootleg organisation are illogical and unconstitutional. “We have been elected by the individuals. We will by no means be a bootleg affiliation,” she mentioned.
A ruling within the case might come as quickly as December, or early subsequent yr, when Argentina could have presidential elections.
“This case is essential due to the political actors at play,” Argentinian political analyst Ricardo Rouvier instructed Al Jazeera, noting that Fernandez de Kirchner continues to be the chief of a political minority in Argentina that’s nonetheless “very lively”.
The implications for subsequent yr’s federal election aren’t but clear, he added. “We’ll must see what the result is.”