At the beginning of the allegations of the Federal Prosecutor Diego Luciani in the case of Public Works, whose main defendant is Vice President Cristian Fernández de Kirchner, he denounced the existence of an illicit institutional association headed by herself in the award of public works in the province of Santa Cruz between 2003 and 2015.
Luciani maintained that “when Néstor Kirchner assumed the presidency and then his wife, Cristina Elizabeth Fernández, they installed and maintained within the national and provincial administration of Santa Cruz one of the most extraordinary matrices of corruption that the country has unfortunately and sadly known.” . “What is extraordinary lies in the unusual characteristics of the association, capacity for action thanks to a perfectly organized division of roles,” he said.
The prosecutor even invoked statements by the current president, Alberto Fernández, when he explained his departure from the Chief of Staff during the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and recalled that one of Alberto Fernández’s reasons was “because of what is happening in public works ”.
Luciani pointed to the former presidential couple and his “friend Lázaro Báez” as heads of the structure of this mechanism of corruption. The prosecutor also warned about the “absolute lack of control by officials and agencies responsible for preventing and denouncing the commission of this crime.”
The Public Prosecutor’s Office, he said, “is accredited that between 2003 and 2015 an illicit association with unique characteristics operated within the State.” “It was a pyramidal illicit association that had at its peak those who served as heads of state and that was organized and integrated by different public officials,” said the prosecutor in the first three hours of his speech before the Federal Oral Court that hold the trial.
Luciani also criticized the Financial Information Unit (FIU) for having withdrawn from the accusation and not having explained in his plea why he did not take into account the “profuse evidence” produced during the debate. It should be remembered that the allegations began on July 11 with the FIU, which requested the acquittal of Cristina Kirchner and the main defendants.
In addition to Cristina Kirchner and Lázaro Báez, in the debate carried out by the Federal Oral Court 2 they are judged July De Vidoformer Minister of Federal Planning; Jose Lopezformer Secretary of Public Works; Abel FatalaUndersecretary of Public Works; Carlos Kirchnerformer head of the Undersecretary for the Coordination of Federal Public Works and cousin of the former president; nelson periottiformer head of the National Highway Administration; Raul Daruich and Mauricio Collareda, former heads of the Santa Cruz district of the National Highway Administration; Y Hector Garro, Juan Carlos Villafañe, Raúl Pavesi and José Santibañezall former presidents of the General Administration of Roads of Santa Cruz.
“It is impossible to prove the existence of a criminal organization. In addition to the doubts produced in the debate on overpricing, we find an absolute evidential orphan at the time of proving an illicit association”, said the lawyer Leandro Ventura.
The FIU only requested minor penalties for the Santa Cruz road officials, considering that they failed to fulfill their duties because they reported that the works in the province were finished when, strictly speaking, this was not the case.