An Argentine cassation court confirmed this Wednesday a lawsuit against Vice President Cristina Kirchner for alleged irregular use of official aircraft during her term as president (2007- 2015).
Specifically, the Federal Criminal and Correctional Chamber reaffirmed the accusation made by a lower court, which held it responsible for the crime of embezzlement (misappropriation of public property), for allegedly using official planes to transport furniture to equip hotels of the Kirchner family in the tourist city of El Calafate, in the south of the country.
Although in November of 2019 the same chamber had already confirmed the accusation, in 26 May of this year the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation decided to annul it so that a new decision could be rendered by the court.
The decision released this Wednesday was approved by a majority by judges Leopolgo Bruglia and Pablo Bertuzzi, who, as happened in the previous, excluded as a crime the fact that the planes were used to transport newspapers – considering that they were elements linked to his functions as head of state – and ratified the lack of merit in the accusation against the then secretary of the presidency and now senator Oscar Parrilli. .
The third judge of the court, Mariano Llorens, had suggested that it be analyzed whether a political trial should be opened against the vice president, who is the president of the Senate, so that she could be detained, but his suggestion was not accepted.
In March of 2020, the judge of first instance Claudio Bonadio – who died in February of 2020 – had indicted Cristina and Parrilli for the alleged use of presidential planes to bring newspapers to the former president and the late former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) when they were in the cities of Río Gallegos and El Calafate, in the province of Santa Cruz.
In addition, they were accused of having used the Tango plane 01 in various occasions to transport furniture and other objects from abroad, whose final destination was presumed to be one of the hotels in El Calafate owned by the Kirchners.
The confirmation of this accusation, which is added to other cases opened against the former president, takes place in the final stretch of the trial that Cristina faces for alleged corruption during her presidential term, in which a prosecutor asked her to serve 12 years in prison for the alleged crimes of association illicit and fraudulent administration of public funds.
