Argentina's high court upholds former President Kirchner's conviction
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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Russia's Putin joins mourners to pay respects to ex-classmate and top judge
Russia's Putin joins mourners to pay respects to ex-classmate and top judge MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin joined mourners on Thursday to say farewell to his former classmate Irina Podnosova, the head of Russia's Supreme Court, who died earlier this week aged 71. Putin looked sad and pensive as he sat alongside members of Podnosova's family in a Moscow hospital where her open casket was placed on display, flanked by an honour guard, for people to pay their final respects. Putin placed a bouquet of red flowers at the foot of her coffin, crossed himself, and bowed his head over the open casket before talking to her family. Putin, 72, and Podnosova were fellow law students in the 1970s in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, where the future president launched his career in the KGB security service. Podnosova was one of several trusted associates from that period who took on senior roles in politics and the judiciary after he became president. Podnosova had been chair of the Supreme Court for little more than a year. She died of cancer, Russian media reported. Solve the daily Crossword
UPI
23 minutes ago
- UPI
Israel hails aid truck deliveries in Gaza, U.N. calls it a 'trickle'
1 of 4 | Israel said Thursday that the United Nations and other international aid agencies had restarted distribution of some humanitarian assistance to Palestinians. Photo by Mahmoud Issa/UPI | License Photo July 24 (UPI) -- Israel said Thursday that the United Nations and other international aid agencies had restarted distribution of some humanitarian assistance to Palestinians after collecting more than 100 trucks of aid from its facilities just inside the border with Gaza. The announcement on X by COGAT, the Israeli government agency tasked with implementing civilian policy in Gaza and the West Bank, came amid mounting international pressure over the spread of mass starvation in the besieged Palestinian enclave. "Yesterday, around 70 food trucks were unloaded at aid crossings, and over 150 were collected by the United Nations and international organizations from the Gazan side, but over 800 still await pickup. We continue to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza," said the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories department. The United Nations' office for humanitarian affairs said the volume of aid involved was "a trickle compared with the immense needs," warning that the chief obstacles to "safe and unimpeded" delivery of aid remained unchanged. "Humanitarian workers face serious security risks, crossings remain unreliable, and critical supplies are routinely delayed or blocked. The U.N. stands ready to seize the opportunity of a cease-fire to significantly scale up humanitarian operations across Gaza, as it did during previous pauses. These plans are finalized," OCHA said in a news release. "But to make a real difference, Israel must enable safe and unimpeded aid delivery, allow the entry of critical equipment and fuel, open all crossings, and restore movement along key supply routes. Humanitarian staff must be able to operate safely, people must be allowed to move freely, and supplies -- including from the private sector -- must reach all parts of Gaza." Israel insisted it was facilitating the entry of aid via the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as well as the aid trucks and, accusing OCHA of abandoning "neutrality," announced that hundreds of OCHA employees would be subject to security vetting. Senior staff, including Jonathan Whitthall, head of office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, would also not get their visas renewed and would have to leave the country next week. Announcing the move, Israel's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told a session of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that there was a clear link between OCHA, which provides statistics and information on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank from its office in Jerusalem, and Hamas. "OCHA has long ceased to be a humanitarian body. It is a Hamas propaganda arm that operates from within U.N. institutions and uses false data and inflammatory discourse to harm Israel. "Israel will take steps to ensure that what has been happening with OCHA will not continue. At some point enough is enough," said Danon. The step marked a sharp deterioration in relations between OCHA and the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that turned sour after OCHA head Tom Fletcher claimed May 20 that 14,000 babies in Gaza would starve to death within 48 hours, a charge Israel condemned as a "blood libel."
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
They couldn't pay their taxes, so D.C. took it all. Unconstitutionally.
Christina Martin, a senior attorney at the law firm Pacific Legal Foundation, was the lead attorney in the Supreme Court case Tyler v. Hennepin County and is representing Juanita Powell in the constitutional challenge to D.C.'s tax foreclosure law. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government violates the Constitution when it takes property to pay a tax debt and keeps more than what is owed. That landmark decision affirmed the importance of private property rights.
