Federal police officers raided an independent radio station in Buenos Aires on Wednesday to obtain the recording of an interview the station had conducted with former Supreme Court Justice Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni.
Federal Judge Ariel Lijo is investigating Zaffaroni on allegations of inciting crime after he told Radio Caput on January 17: “I would hope the (Macri) government left office as soon as possible.”
Radio Caput’s studio and headquarters in downtown Buenos Aires was raided at 8.10 on Wednesday morning, its director Juan Martín Ramos Padilla confirmed to Perfil.
“I told the operator [who was the only person working at the time] to ask them to wait but they insisted, they then threatened to lock him in jail and blow our door down,” Ramos Padilla said.
Radio Caput is scheduled to interview Amado Boudou this afternoon.
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Zaffaroni stood by his controversial statements over the weekend, clarifying: “If they leave [office] early, then we can resolve the problem [Argentina is facing]”.
“Yes, let’s hope they leave in 2019, if they make it”, he told C5N's Marcelo Zlotogwiazda. “Let them leave on an impeachment, I don’t know. Otherwise, they should take their foot of the accelerator”, he added, referring to the Macri administration’s economic reforms.
The government and its allies pounced on the comments, claiming the judge had all but called for a coup d’état.
However, while most observers agree that this was not the judge's intention, others have described Zaffaroni’s comments as undemocratic and inappropriate given his position as a judge on the prestigious Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Government members have called on him to resign from that bench.
Zaffaroni “has expressed an anti-democratic vision that Argentines left in the past long ago,” Justice Minister Germán Garavano told Clarín. “He should not continue [as a justice] on the Inter-American Court [of Human Rights].”
-TIMES
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