Fernández de Kirchner's defence team requests 'notebooks' case be sent to trial

The defence team of former president and vice-presidential candidate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has sent a letter to the federal judge in charge of the 'cuadernos' notebooks corruption case, requesting to be sent to trial. 

Carlos Beraldi, Fernández de Kirchner’s lawyer in the “cuadernos” case, has complied with federal judge Claudio Bonadio’s request to go forward with the trial. Yet in his letter, Beraldi issued harsh criticisms of Bonadio’s handling of the case. 

“Under normal conditions, the possibility that these actions could be elevated to a trial, in judicial terms, would result in absurdity,” Beraldi wrote. 

The defence lawyer maintained hie line that a public trial would result in the exoneration of Fernández de Kirchner, who is accused of overseeing a huge illicit system of bribery and corruption. The allegations are based on information detailed in a series of journals kept by Oscar Centeno, a former chaffuer attached to Kirchnerite officials who worked at the Planning Ministry under the governments of Fernández de Kirchner and her husband Néstor Kirchner. 

“The judge and the prosecutor carried out a shopping forum of unequivocal maneuvering to hold back the case without practising the appropriate draw, violating what is provided in valid law,” Beraldi wrote. 

Beraldi said the case’s underlying justification was obtained by “illegal means” through the use of Centeno’s notebooks. The former president’s defence noted that Centeno had burned them in la parrilla of his home and that only photocopies of the corruption notebooks existed. 

“Furthermore, it has been written in the [court’s] own resolutions that there exists not one direct test that shows my client had received bribes,” Beraldi said. 

– NA / TIMES