(Buenos Aires) Argentine justice reopened on Monday two procedures, synonymous with potential trials, against Vice-President Cristina Kirchner, in cases of money laundering and obstruction of justice, in which she had benefited from dismissals, according to several media.
The Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation reversed a dismissal pronounced in November 2021 in favor of Mme Kirchner and his children Florencia and Maximo, in the so-called “Los Sauces” affair, named after a family real estate business, reported the official Telam agency.
The former president (2007-2015) was prosecuted there for having, according to the accusation, set up between 2009 and 2015 “a system of recycling funds of illegal origin through Los Sauces”. Justice deemed the evidence insufficient, dismissing the case.
The Chamber also revoked on Monday the dismissal pronounced in October 2021 in a separate case, where Mme Kirchner was accused of obstructing – for the benefit of Iran – the investigation into the attack against a Jewish mutual insurance company which left 85 dead and 300 injured in 1994 in Buenos Aires.
She was prosecuted for having encouraged the approval in Parliament of an agreement with Tehran, providing that senior Iranian officials suspected in connection with the attack be heard outside Argentina, allowing them to escape justice.
Justice in its dismissal of the case had estimated that the memorandum of understanding, “whether it is considered a political success or failure, does not constitute an offense”.
The chamber recommended Monday that these two cases be sent to trial, but excluded Ms.me Kirchner in the money laundering affair. The resolutions were initially not available on Monday from the body or on its website.
These two decisions remain appealable before the Supreme Court, making short-term trials hypothetical.
Mme Kirchner, 70, has been indicted in half a dozen proceedings since her presidency, denouncing political-judicial persecution.
She obtained several dismissals, but was sentenced at the end of 2022 to six years in prison – from which her parliamentary immunity protects her – and to ineligibility, during a trial for fraud and corruption in a public procurement case in his political stronghold of Santa Cruz (south).
In the wake of the judgment, the former head of state and figure of the left announced a political withdrawal, affirming that she will not be a candidate “for anything, neither senator, nor vice-president, nor president” in the elections from October 2023.
Several levels of appeal should not make the 2022 sentence effective for years.