Argentina's convicted ex-leader Kirchner seeks house arrest
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina's ex-president Cristina Kirchner has asked to serve her six-year prison sentence for corruption under house arrest, her lawyer said Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court upheld her conviction and ban on holding public office.
The ruling by the top court brought the curtain down on the career of a giant of the Argentine left and a leading critic of libertarian President Javier Milei.
Given her age -- 72 -- Kirchner has the right to request that she serve her sentence at her home in Buenos Aires.
"We are requesting the house arrest granted to people over 70," her lawyer Carlos Beraldi told reporters.
Kirchner, who served two terms as president between 2007 and 2015, heads the leftist Peronist movement founded by post-war president Juan Peron and his wife Eva.
She claims the case is part of a right-wing political plot to scupper her career.
Another of her lawyers, Gregorio Dalbon, travelled to the Dutch city of The Hague to file a complaint at the International Criminal Court.
Writing on X, Dalbon said Kirchner was the victim of "lawfare," which aimed "to disqualify the woman who has won most often at the polls since the return to democracy" after a 1976-1983 dictatorship.
He said he would also appeal the verdict to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
She has called the three Supreme Court judges who rejected her leave to appeal her 2022 conviction to the top court "puppets acting on orders from above."
The downfall of a woman who inspires reverence on the left and revulsion on the right has divided Argentines.
Thousands of her supporters, who see her as a key voice of resistance to Milei's agenda of rampant cost-cutting and deregulation, rallied around her outside her party headquarters on Tuesday evening.
Students at the University of Buenos Aires occupied three faculties and some protestors blocked roads leading to Buenos Aires with burning tyres.
Milei, who was criticized last year for saying he would "love to hammer the last nail into the coffin of Kirchnerismo, with Cristina Kirchner inside," welcomed the ruling.
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