Argentina's high court upholds former President Kirchner's conviction
Argentina's Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (pictured in 2013) must serve her six-year prison sentence for a corruption conviction. File Photo by Stefano Spaziani/UPI | License Photo
June 10 (UPI) -- Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner must serve her six-year prison sentence for a corruption conviction, the nation's Supreme Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday.
The three-judge court unanimously upheld Kirchner's 2022 corruption conviction and ruled she is banned from holding public office.
The conviction arises from how awards for 51 public works projects were issued in what became the "Vialidad" trial.
Kirchner, 72, received due process, and the "rulings issued by the lower courts were based on extensive evidence assessed in accordance with the rules of sound judgment and the penal code enacted by Congress," the judges wrote in Tuesday's verdict.
She had argued that the trial arose from political persecution because she is an influential leader of the opposition to current Argentine President Javier Milei and his government.
Kirchner was Argentina's president from 2007 to 2015. She also was Argentina's vice president from 2019 to 2023.
She is a popular leftist politician and recently announced she intended to run for a seat during the Sept. 7 Buenos Aires Province legislative elections.
If she were to run and win, the victory would have given Kirchner immunity against imprisonment over the four-year term as a provincial lawmaker.
The Supreme Court's decision against her makes it impossible for Kirchner to seek any public office.
"The republic works," Milei said in a translated statement made during his visit to Israel.
"All the corrupt journalists, accomplices of politicians, have been exposed in their operetta about the alleged pact of impunity," Milei said.
The Federal Oral Court 2 in December 2022 found Kirchner guilty of corruption, sentenced her to prison and imposed a lifetime disqualification from holding public office due to "fraudulent administration to the detriment of the state."
She was allowed to stay out of prison while the Supreme Court deliberated the case.
Kirchner similarly was charged with fraud in 2016 and was convicted in February 2021, which made her Argentina's first vice president to be convicted of a crime while still in office.
She was accused of and convicted of directing 51 public works contracts to a company owned by Kirchner's friend and business associate, Lazaro Baez.
The scheme also directed $1 billion to Baez, who is serving a 12-year sentence for a money-laundering conviction in 2021 and was sentenced to another six years in prison for charges arising from the case that resulted inKirchner's conviction.
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