Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner says the accusations against her in a massive corruption trial are a "judicial operetta" designed to deflect attention away from Argentina's troubles.
In a post on social media issued the same day the so-called 'Cuadernos de las coimas' trial got underway in Buenos Aires, Fernández de Kirchner – who remains jailed under house arrest due to a graft conviction in another trial – branded the case a "show."
"It wasn’t enough for them to lock me up and disqualify me for life,” they need to “keep the judicial operetta alive,” said the ex-president.
The 'Cuadernos' case centres on the alleged collection of bribes in return for the awarding of public works contracts. The probe owes its name to notebooks allegedly kept by Oscar Centeno, a chauffeur at the Federal Planning Ministry, who tracked illegal payments in a massive bribery and kickbacks scheme. Prosecutors say it is the biggest corruption trial in the country's history.
According to prosecutors, business figures made illegal payments to state officials during the Kirchnerite governments to win multi-billion-peso infrastructure contracts. Prosecutors maintain that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s president from 2007 to 2015, was at the heart of the corruption ring.
Fernández de Kirchner denies the charges against her, claiming they are part of an organised plot of “judicial and political persecution” against her.
“Today starts a new court show at Comodoro Py. It seems it wasn’t enough for them to lock me up and disqualify me for life over the Vialidad Case: they need to keep the judicial operetta alive to keep pushing and, above all, deflect attention,” she wrote on her X account on Thursday.
The veteran Peronist leader said that President Javier MIlei's government wanted to “keep pushing” and “deflect citizen’s attention” away from the economic hardships facing Argentines.
“This circus, just like previous ones, doesn’t have a court calendar: it has a political calendar. They kept the ‘operation fake notebooks’ in the fridge, always ready to be defrosted when needed. And now it all starts right when the future of employment and pensions is being discussed, in what amounts to a true court agenda in service of the adjustment,” said Fernández de Kirchner.
She claimed that this “scandalous judicial mess of fake notebooks rewritten 1,500 times” presented many “whistleblowers” who should be considered “extorted parties.”
Fernández de Kirchner also criticised Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona, noting that in 2018 he had the defence attorney of one of the businesspeople in custody.
“I’m not afraid. I know history, as always, will put everything in its place. They can invent cases, manipulate judges or deliver rulings, but they’re not going to stop the organisation of Peronism and the entire national and popular field, in the face of the looting they’re carrying out which they intend to expand over the next few months," said Fernández de Kirchner, moving on to criticise Milei's economic policies.
"In the meantime, thanks to [Economy Minister Luis] Caputo and JP Morgan, the second mega indebtedness of Argentina is progressing, for billions of dollars no-one ever saw or will see; but which is mortgaging the present and future of many generations.
"One thing is for sure, though, without any prosecutor accusing them or any judge judging them for the theft, and with Argentines in debt and living increasingly worse: people are short of money and there’s no work,” concluded the former president.
– TIMES/NA
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