Criminal case for Putin's gift: the ex-president of Argentina appeared before the court

Corruption, concealment of documents, aiding the terrorists. The trial of the former president of Argentina Cristina Kirchner and the new criminal cases do not prevent her from selling her autobiography in huge numbers and going to the polls. One of the charges related to a gift from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Photo: kremlin.ru

The first meeting on the scandalous “Road Case”, there was not a single empty seat in the hall. The main defendant is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who led Argentina from 2007 to 2015 and is now a senator. In addition to her, 12 more people are involved in the case, writes Present Tense.

According to the investigation, Kirchner together with her spouse Nestor Kirchner (Argentine President from 2003 to 2007 year, now deceased) 12 years headed the criminal organization of officials and businessmen, enriched by bribes from bidders for road construction. The Criminal Code provides for this crime from 5 to 16 years in prison.

Kirchner insists on his innocence and speaks of political persecution. After Mauricio Macri came to power in Argentina, ten criminal cases were brought against her. Numerous corruption cases against presidents, governors, ministers, both former and current, are common practice in Argentina: at least seven are now being investigated against Macri himself, his relatives and members of the government.

Three days before the trial, Cristina (Argentines call her that, just by name) announced that she would run for vice president in October 2019. She is running in the elections together with Alberto Fernandez, who headed the government from 2003 to 2008 (“under the Kirchners”). Opinion polls call them the favorites in the upcoming race, regardless of whether Mauricio Macri decides to seek a second term or chooses a successor.

In advance, as if preparing for a future election campaign, Christina Kirchner published a book in April 2019. It's called "Sincerely". The first edition sold out in a few hours.

“Christina's book? Are you kidding? It ended yesterday. It sells better than pies. We just ordered a new batch,” says a shop assistant on Corrientes Street in Buenos Aires. There are bookstores on this street almost every hundred meters, but out of five stores chosen at random, “Chistosterdno” is located in only one. The bestseller has already been republished four times; more than 250 thousand copies have been sold in a month.

In the book, Christina Kirchner talks about her life - from the beginning of her studies at the Faculty of Law to the present day. Many criticize the government of Makri, examines in detail the criminal cases against her, shares the details of her personal life and recalls cases from presidential everyday life.

Photo: video frame YouTube / Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

Criminal case for Putin's gift

Russian President Vladimir Putin is mentioned several times in the book. The result of one of the meetings with the Russian leader was a criminal case under the article “illegal storage of historical documents.”

In September 2018, Christina’s apartment and house were searched in connection with a case of multimillion-dollar bribes. No cash or secret safes were found, but 94 boxes of documents were taken away. Among them were two historical ones: a police dossier with hundred-year-old reports on the surveillance of opposition politician and future president Hipolito Yrigoyen and a letter from the main hero of the war for Argentina's independence from Spain - the “father of the nation”, General José de San Martin, dated 1835. The relics were transferred to the National Archives. There they confirmed their authenticity and stated that the documents were stolen and sold on the black market.

The history of the police file to this day remains unknown, but Kirchner tells about the general's letter in the book.

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The letter of José de San Martin is addressed to Bernardo O'Higgins, the Chilean associate of the general. The document was kept in the National Library of Chile, from where it mysteriously disappeared in 1979, during the reign of General Augusto Pinochet.

36 years later, in April 2015, during Christina Kirchner’s visit to Russia, Vladimir Putin gave his guest an unexpected gift. “When I opened the box and saw the real letter from San Martin to O'Higgins, I almost died. I looked at Putin and asked: “Where did you get him from?” The answer was not long in coming and surprised me even more: “We bought it especially for you in New York,” Kirchner says in his book.

She explains why she did not declare the gift and left it to herself: she believed that the Argentine law on the concealment, destruction and illegal resale of historical documents was temporary and ceased to operate in the 1962 year. The prosecution is going to fine Christina for a large sum, and Chile is demanding the return of the general's letter to the National Library.

Photo: kremlin.ru

Terrorist attack, spy and death of a prosecutor

In Argentina's two-hundred-year history, only two presidents have been accused of treason: General Juan Domingo Peron after his overthrow by the military in 1955 and Cristina Kirchner for aiding terrorism. According to the prosecution, she prevented the arrest of the organizers of the terrorist attack at AMIA in 1994 for oil contracts with Iran (AMIA is the “Israeli-Argentine Association”, one of the oldest emigrant Jewish organizations in the country, founded in 1894). In “Sincerely,” the ex-president tells his version of what happened.

On July 18, 1994, in Buenos Aires, a suicide bomber crashed a car bomb into the building of the Israeli-Argentine Association, killing 85 people and injuring more than 200. The investigation and trials are still ongoing, and no one has been convicted for preparing and carrying out the terrorist attack. From the very beginning, Cristina Kirchner - then a deputy - was the politician who insisted on the most transparent investigation and communicated with the relatives of the victims. The authorities seemed not at all interested in finding the culprits. Hezbollah was behind the attack. They said that the then President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, personally slowed down the search for criminals for a huge bribe. (In early 2019, the court acquitted Menem of “obstructing the investigation”).

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Investigators changed several times until, in 2007, prosecutor Alberto Nisman submitted a list of five suspected Iranians to Interpol. Among them - the former Minister of Security, the former head of the Revolutionary Guard and diplomats.

But all the alleged organizers of the explosion were in Iran, and Argentine law does not allow starting a court in the absence of the accused. It didn't move.

In 2013, Christina Kirchner and Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman announced a diplomatic breakthrough: Tehran is ready to discuss the demands of Buenos Aires in the AMIA case.

“What illusions there were about this memorandum! Just imagine a photo of an Argentine judge in Tehran interrogating accused Iranians. Oh, how naive we were!” writes Kirchner. For the document to come into force, it had to be reviewed and approved by the parliaments of the two countries. Iranian deputies never began to read it.

In December 2014, Kirchner began reshuffling the National Intelligence Directorate. Among those fired was Antonio "Jaime" Stiuso, the head of the intelligence operations department and a good friend of Prosecutor Nisman.

“You can’t fire me so easily. It depends on me whether the presidents will end up wearing a striped robe or not,” “Jaime” allegedly said. And she launched a counter-offensive against President Kirchner, she is sure.

In January, 2015, Alberto Nisman unexpectedly returned from a vacation earlier than planned, and publicly accused Christina Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman of harboring terrorism. According to him, the memorandum of 2013 of the year suggested lucrative oil contracts with Iran in exchange for the abolition of the international search for suspects in the AMIA case.

This information was officially denied by Interpol, and the memorandum itself never came into force. But prosecutor Nisman assured that there was evidence of conspiracy - and promised to present it in parliament. The day before the performance, on January 18, 2015, Nisman was found dead in the toilet of his apartment. The official version is suicide. Kirchner believes that the prosecutor was a victim of the manipulations of the spy "Jaime". He allegedly convinced Nisman that he was going to be fired, and that blaming the president was his only chance to save his post and career, promised secret intelligence archives, but never handed over anything.

Photo: video frame YouTube / Al Jazeera English

Back to prison?

The death of Nisman is still being investigated, they managed to write several books about it. Opponents of Kirchner and relatives of the prosecutor insisted that Nisman was killed, but could not provide sufficient evidence of this version. A few months after the death of the prosecutor, the presidential election was won by Mauricio Macri.

Threatened before Kirchner threat to be behind bars - not the first in her life. 6 January 1976 was arrested along with her husband and two friends in the south of Argentina - in the homeland of Nestor Kirchner, in the city of Rio Gallegos. The military had not yet accomplished a coup, but they were already hunting for political opposition activists, just like Nestor Kirchner.

In her autobiography, Christina recalls how they were separated and she ended up in a female detention center. A few days later her mother-in-law, Nestor's mother, appeared on the threshold of the chamber.

“Seeing me on a bed covered with old torn bedspreads, she exclaimed through tears: “You don’t even have sheets!” - “Oh, Maria, what sheets! Do something! Free us from here!” The couple spent 17 days in prison and were released thanks to the family connections of Kirchner's parents.

Now, more than forty years later, senatorial immunity saves Christina Kirchner from arrest. She attends all interrogations and attends court hearings. When the secretary of Comodroro Pi finishes reading 60 two-hundred-page volumes of the case, the court will begin to question witnesses - there are more than 160 of them. One of the witnesses is Cristina's political ally and future presidential candidate Alberto Fernandez.

The presidential and vice presidential elections are scheduled for October in Argentina.

Christina Kirchner's book has not yet been translated into Russian. Quotes are translated by the author of the article according to the publication: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner “Sinceramente”, - cuarta edicion, Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2019.

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