The President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, responded this Friday (26) to the interim attorney general that the remarks made about the prosecutor who asked for a sentence of 12 Years in prison for Vice President Cristina Kirchner for alleged corruption “in no way” are an attempt to condition the employee’s actions.
The prosecutor acting general, Eduardo Casal, had sent a note to the president on Thursday in which he expressed “deep concern” with the statements that the president had made in a televised interview and that would imply a “disturbance” in the exercise of the functions of the prosecutor Diego Luciani – who also asked for the vice president to be disqualified from holding public office -, in addition to “undue interference”.
On Wednesday, Alberto Fernández compared the situation of prosecutor Diego Luciani – who accuses Cristina Kirchner of having been the “head” of an illicit association that caused millionaire economic losses ios to the State when he was president (2007-2015) – with that of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found dead with a gunshot to the head in 2015, hours before presenting a complaint in Congress against the then president.
According to the note that Alberto Fernández sent this Friday to the prosecutor, his expressions “can in no way be interpreted as wanting to condition the actions of an employee”, which would have been “clear, since they were made when the prosecutor in the case had already finished his appeal in the process”.
“The Judiciary and its judges and officials are not and could not be exempt from criticism and opinions in a democratic society”, said the president, who referred to the case of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), who in his opinion “was unjustly convicted and imprisoned” and, consequently, prohibited from contesting the last presidential elections, before the proceedings were annulled.
Alberto Fernández indicated that he did not violate the limits established in the Argentine Constitution, which prevents the president from exercising judicial functions.
The representative said that he had expressed what the public notes, that many magistrates and federal justice officials “pay more attention to certain factual and/or political interests than to the rules in force”.
In addition, he accused the prosecutor of using a “ double standard” to measure the positions adopted by different political actors, comparing himself with former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), who, according to him, in presidential functions had interference in legal proceedings.
