Former president-cum-Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has published a video showing some of the rooms of her El Calafate home that were searched last week during a three-day court-ordered raid.
Fernández de Kirchner is being investigated in the so-called "notebooks" case, an alleged graft ring in which former officials of hers and her late husband Néstor Kirchner's presidencies took kick-backs from construction sector bosses in exchange for public works contracts and other benefits.
The video was published on Youtube on Sunday. In less than a day, it had received over half a million views.
"I don't remember any raid ever lasting three days", Senator Fernández de Kirchner complained. "My worst fears came true".
In the video lasting 17 minutes, the former head of state offers a tour of the rooms in her El Calafate mansion where investigators appeared to have searched for hidden spaces and objects tied to alleged corruption. Several walls were punctured and materials, including stones that line the walls and staircase of the first floor of the property, were removed, Fernández de Kirchner points out.
"They broke everything, they took personal belongings and things from my home that have nothing to do with any investigation", she said, alleging that authorities seized several paintings and souvenirs.
"In Buenos Aires, in my apartment, they didn't let my lawyer in... I haven't been able to return to my home in a month", she complained, before alluding to allegations that her apartment in the Recoleta neighbourhood had been poisoned.
Fernández de Kirchner has described her legal woes as "persecution". She is currently protected from jail because of her parliamentary immunity as a Senator.
Observers say she will run for the presidency in 2019, while judicial sources allege that the federal judge presiding over a number of cases against Fernández de Kirchner, Claudio Bonadio, will soon move again to request the Senate strip her of her immunity.
-TIMES/PERFIL
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