The prosecutor in the Cuadernos case denounced the magistrates who should be prosecuted for “delaying justice”.
one of Very harsh and unusual complaintAttorney General Fabiana Leon slams the judges Against whom oral and public hearing should be held Cristina Kirchner and more than 160 former officials and businesspeople known for the case “Bribe Notebook”. accused them “Justice Delayed”, almost without taking Four and a half years Steps to complete this process and those associated with that file.
Those reported before the Federal Criminal Court of Cassation, which is the highest criminal court in the country below the Court, are judges of the Federal Oral Court No. 7, German Castelli, Enrique Mendez Signori and Fernando Canerowho has a case going on for four years and five months, There has been no progress in setting a trial date or deciding the admissibility of evidentiary measures,
“All reasonable time has already expired. The prosecutor’s office under my charge does not support or delay the processing of cases, nor has it caused it. “This is even with 4 colleagues and little space”said to Nation Prosecutor Leon, after presenting both statements, demands a prompt response from the judges of the Criminal Cassation Chamber.
There are 161 defendants in the Cuadernos case. The main defendant in this case is Christina Kirchner As head of an illegal associationAllegations came from Oscar CentenoA driver from the Ministry of Planning who wrote down in a notebook the trips he made with Kirchnerist officials from the former Federal Planning Ministry portfolio Take back the bribes given by businessmen, The “regretful” officials admitted to the charges and the businessmen accepted the payment before the judge, Nation A journalistic investigation was conducted which exposed the ruse.
The Cuadernos cause is actually several connected causes. The main one is the one that includes the writings of Centeno, with three volumes Other cases of fraud and money laundering have been added Where there is talk of a criminal organization, which took place between the years 2003 and 2015, “within the framework of which bribes and payments were made in order to satisfy these fictitious interests and with a view to obtaining mutual benefits of businessmen and officials, the rate of that prior illegal agreement”, as assessed by Justice.
Strictly speaking, two “complaints of delay in justice” were presented in two cases related to the main case: one which alleged Bribery in the purchase of liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships And in which the former minister’s domestic staff has been investigated julio de vido For their gorgeous accessories.
In the first case, LNG, the judges of Chamber I of Cassation will now have to resolve a complaint of “delay in justice”. Diego Barroetavena, Daniel Petrone and Carlos Mahiques.The letter is dated May 31st and they haven’t resolved it.
The complaint of “delay in justice” in the case of De Vido’s cook is being heard by judges of Chamber II (Angela Ledesma, Alejandro Slokar and Guillermo Yacobucci) and Chamber IV of Cassation (Gustavo Hornos, Mariano Borinsky and Javier Carbajo), due to disagreement over who should make the decision.
Prosecutor Leon, in both cases, is insisting “Request for Expedite Dispatch” so the judge can speed it up The admissibility of evidence and deciding who witnesses are in this process. The prosecution also proposed that the cases be heard separately, interspersed or sequentially, but that the oral hearings go ahead.
,procrastinationwhich I describe as not only unfair, it responds to only one form of direction of process which is the responsibility – not the privilege – of judges. The result This affects the image of the judiciary and causes irreparable damage to the interests of the parties, evidence and society in general.said the prosecutor, who asked the cassation to urge the judges to set a date for the start of the trial or at least set the conditions for its conduct.
The prosecution said in its brief, which it agreed to Nationthat the investigating prosecutor requested he be brought to trial on November 8, 2019. Julio Miguel de Vido, Roberto Baratta, Roberto Nicolas Dromi, Jose Roberto Dromi and Exquiel Espinosa for interfering with the purchase of liquefied natural gas (LNG) between 2008 and 2009 and defrauding and harming the interests of the State. In late 2019, the case was handed over to the now-condemned judges.
A year and a half later, the parties were called to present evidence and on two occasions, last May, the court was urged to fix a date for the trial and decide what evidence to admit, but the judges only responded with “be present”.
“As of the date of this submission, four years, five months and 22 days have elapsed since this case was filed and two years, nine months and 20 days since the proceedings are in a position to order the admissibility of the evidence offered.”Prosecutor Leon complained.
“The situation arising due to delay in the court is serious at this time”Said the prosecutor, who said that the judges of the oral court have given the file “a winding and delayed path from the very beginning, resulting in years of delays in progressing or responding to the necessary actions necessary for the process to reach its conclusion. “.
“The background and dates of the case, already adequately recounted, set the tone for the imperative need to expedite the already lengthy process assigned to this case,” Leon wrote. And he commented: “All reasonable time has already expired for continuing to delay the progress of this type of process. -In fact, every process- is on its way to a definite and timely resolution.”
The prosecutor said that “the only thing that matters is that all the procedural acts necessary to proceed towards an oral trial have already been overcome – and for a very long time now – with the speed consistent with all criminal proceedings and that this has been denied.” Even when it is a complex case or when resources are not available. He criticized the laxity of the court members because “the partial certification of the documentation took several years, without – already 5 years! – having a final and detailed certification of the documents” that would allow them to be traced,
The prosecution spoke about the need to separate the trials in this particular case, beyond its relation to the rest of the files. “This case is part of a process composed of different acts of corruption in which it has progressed to this oral instance. It consists of a factual hypothesis of qualified fraud, linked to other files that contain allegations of illicit collaboration, bribery and money laundering. In all of them, the center of the maneuvers was located in the CFP case 9608/2018 (the mother case) and those that are its tributary because they are its collection channels. But this file can be judged separately, León said, because it has other defendants and facts.
He proposed the same for the second summary, where he condemned the judges for “delaying justice”. This is the case against De Vido’s cook Nelida Caballero, Omar Marcelo Lavergne and Camila Florencia Caballero Accused of intervening in money laundering operations of illicit origin.
there also Four years, five months and 22 days have elapsed since the filing of this case and two years, two months and nine days have elapsed since the proceedings were initiated and it is in a position to decide which of the evidence produced will be accepted and which will not.
In the case of this file, it reached Chamber II of Cassation, led by Ledesma, Slokar and Yacobucci, who forwarded it to Chamber IV, since there the case of illicit enrichment against De Vido was ongoing. But the judges of Chamber IV, Hornos, Carbajo and Borinski, did not accept the contest.
The judges of Chamber II deemed that the case against the domestic worker was related to that case De Vido and his wife Alessandra Minnicelli are being investigated for exorbitant increase in wealthBut those in Chamber IV indicated they were separate cases that were “in different procedural stages.”
That is to say, despite the complaints of delayed justice, the judges who must resolve them do not even agree on who will decide on the conduct of the oral court, which has not set a trial date for almost five years.
The bribery notebook case started with an investigation by a newspaper Nation This revealed notes about the times when Centeno visited official offices and companies to receive and bring bribes. In some cases, His visits ended at Cristina Kirchner’s apartment in Recoleta.where according to the evidence the bags were received by his secretary, the deceased Daniel Munoz,
Cristina Kirchner is accused of 27 acts of bribery and of heading an illegal association. The main defendants are former officials From the Widow, Baratta, Jose Lopez and drivers Centeno, the financier Ernesto Clarence, and businessmen Angelo Calcaterra, Carlos Wagner (former head of the Argentine Chamber of Construction) and Nestor Otero (concessionaire of Retiro Bus Station), among others.