Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is dismissed in part of the investigation into the Corruption Notebooks

a judge of Argentina dismissed the former president and current vice president of the country, Cristina Fernandezand a hundred businessmen in a section of the so-called “cause of the notebooks”.

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The decision, adopted by federal judge Julián Ercolini, concerns only one part of that complex and resounding judicial investigation, which focused on alleged movements of funds related to the award of highway construction works by the National Directorate of Highway to entrepreneurs.

The judicial decision also benefits the former Minister of Planning Julio de Vido and the former Secretary of Public Works José López, who were also charged in this case for alleged illicit association.

According to the ruling, to which Efe had access, the magistrate concluded that “it is necessary” to dictate the dismissal since, “after analyzing the evidence gathered in the case and its related ones”, “at this point no other elements have been added in the evolution of the investigation that allow establishing that the defendants were part” of an illicit association.

“It was not possible, despite the profuse investigation carried out, to establish the responsibility of the accused,” said the judge.

The “case of the notebooks” began in 2018, when a journalistic investigation revealed the content of a series of notes on alleged bribe payments related to public works during the governments of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Fernández (2007- 2015).

The annotations were made in notebooks by Óscar Centeno, who worked as a driver for the Ministry of Federal Planning and who for more than a decade wrote details about the alleged trips he made to move bags with the alleged payments of millions of dollars from state contractors. to senior executive positions.

The case gave rise to several sections of investigation, including one focused on road works and that was nurtured with information provided by the financier Ernesto Clarens.

Although the payments specifically investigated in this section of the case could not be proven, in his ruling Ercolini pointed out that from other sections of the investigation it appears that there were civil public works that were assigned “through the system by which the awards of works, with the beneficiary companies having to deliver sums of money as compensation”.

“It remains to mention that these events were carried out within the framework of a criminal organization, made up of officials of the, at that time, Executive Power of the Nation, in relation to whom their prosecution was timely ordered, and their elevation was ordered. to oral trial”, recalls the ruling.

The judge thus made mention of the central file of the case, raised to oral trial in 2019, with a start date still to be defined and which has as defendants the vice president, former employees of his government and businessmen from the construction sector.

Source: Elcomercio

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