Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has been sentenced to jail for corruption – however is at present immune from truly going behind bars due to her function.
A Buenos Aires court docket sentenced Ms Fernandez de Kirchner to 6 years and disqualified her from holding public workplace after she was discovered responsible of awarding public works to a contact who channelled the cash again to her.
She denied the allegations and dismissed the court docket as a “firing squad” – including: “This is a parallel state and judicial mafia.”
The highly effective vice chairman is not going to face fast jail time as a result of her workplace offers her “temporary immunity”.
She can also be anticipated to attraction the sentence, with the case prone to spend years winding via greater courts.
Technically, she might run for workplace whereas the appeals are pending, however she stated on Tuesday she “would not be a candidate for anything” in subsequent yr’s scheduled basic election.
Ms Fernandez de Kirchner served as president for 2 phrases between 2007 and 2015 and instructions crowds of supporters.
Thousands gathered within the streets after she survived an assassination try this yr – and large crowds additionally shaped exterior the courtroom the place she was being sentenced on Tuesday.
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In the livestreamed sentencing, judges discovered her responsible because the “criminally responsible author of the crime of fraudulent administration to the detriment of the public administration”.
The court docket acquitted her on one other depend of “illicit association”.
Prosecutors had alleged public works contracts have been handed to building magnate and ally Lazaro Baez, who fed the cash again to Fernandez de Kirchner and her late husband Nestor Kirchner, additionally a former president.
Baez was additionally sentenced to 6 years in jail.
“It is clear that the idea was always to condemn me,” Fernandez de Kirchner stated in a reside video on YouTube after the sentencing.
Argentina is on edge after an extended financial disaster, with inflation heading in direction of 100%.
Source: information.sky.com”
