The former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner challenged the prosecutor Mario Villar and the Cassation judge Diego Barroetaveña in the file in which his sentence to six years in prison for the Road Cause and asked that all hearings that began this week be suspended.
Through a letter signed by lawyers Carlos Alberto Beraldi and Ary Llernovoy, the former president’s defense stated “objective circumstances that put the objectivity and impartiality of the aforementioned judges in crisis”.
“From now on we expressly stated the nullity of the procedural acts that the challenged magistrates may carry out.
In line with the above, in order to avoid possible annulments, we respectfully request that the hearings set in the records be suspended,” the letter claims.
In the case of prosecutor Villar, the former president maintained that in this case she stated that There was only one illicit association while in another file she maintained that she was the leader of two.
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“While prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola affirmed in this process that there was a single illicit association, created to commit fraud and launder assets, prosecutors Diego Velasco and Mario Villar stated in the Hotesur and Los Sauces cases that, in truth, “Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was a member of two different criminal gangs: one formed to defraud the State (investigated within the framework of this process) and another formed to launder money (investigated in the Hotesur and Los Sauces cases),” the defense explained.
“Faced with such a contradiction, we expressly point out that the prosecution could not support antagonistic propositions in its accusation for the crime of illicit association. However, Villar, despite having affirmed the existence of two different illicit associations, in the hearing held on the 26th of February maintained for this process that there was only a single illicit association,” he added.
“Far from acting objectively, Prosecutor Mario Villar has held antagonistic positions in the cases to his knowledgeaimed at maintaining punitive claims at all costs against the former President of the Nation,” he concluded.
Regarding Judge Barroetaveña, the defense of the former president considered that “he has already issued an opinion in another file regarding the factual and legal extremes” related to the Road Case.
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“Such a situation places the aforementioned judge in a clear and regrettable position of prejudging“, says the document.
“The defenders recalled that Barroetaveña and Daniel Petrone revoked the dismissal of Cristina Kirchner in the cases over the hotels.”
“Having revoked that dismissal, leaving the accusation for the crime of money laundering subsisting, the judges enabled the prosecution, as a theory of the case, to continue maintaining that the illicit association attributed to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner also had the purpose of carrying out carried out money laundering maneuvers. In other words: if that dismissal had been confirmed, in no way could it be maintained in this file that the aforementioned illicit association also had the purpose, in addition to committing fraud, of laundering assets,” they explained.
“Judge Barroetaveña – together with his colleague – established a position that recognizes the existence of a single illicit association attributed to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, established for the purposes of committing fraud to the detriment of the State and money laundering maneuvers, as it is now prosecutor Villar postulates in his grievances,” he described.
Barroetaveña, adds the text, “is now immersed in the cause of separation “because it has evaluated and issued an opinion on facts that are directly and immediately related to the grievances postulated by the prosecution in this process, regarding which it must issue a ruling.”