Who is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner ? What did she do? Is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner guilty of fraudulent administration? Read full details here!
Who Is Cristina Fernández?
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is an Argentine lawyer and a politician who in 2007 became the first female elected president of Argentina; she held office until 2015. She succeeded her husband, Néstor Kirchner, who had served as president from 2003 to 2007. She was born on February 19,1953 at La Plata Argentina.
Is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner guilty of Fraudulent act?
Argentina’s vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, was found guilty of corruption in federal court Tuesday in a case dating back to when she was president.
In December 2022, a court found her guilty of awarding public contracts worth $1bn (£820m) to a family friend and sentenced her to six years in jail.
She has also been banned from public office for life, but will continue in her role as vice-president while the case goes through higher court.
Fernández de Kirchner said the charges against her were politically motivated. Speaking after the verdict, she described herself as the victim of a “judicial mafia”, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Before the ruling, she had also accused the prosecutors of lying and slandering her.
Prosecutors said Fernández de Kirchner had led an unlawful partnership during the time when she was president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015.
The prosecutors also said she had created a kickback scheme which steered lucrative public work contracts towards a friend of hers in return for bribes. The prosecutors said that they uncovered irregularities in dozens of public work tenders awarded in the southern province of Santa Cruz, Fernández de Kirchner’s political stronghold. Many of the construction projects were never completed.
Prosecutor Diego Luciani described it as “probably the biggest corruption operation the country has known”. He also said the alleged kickback scheme had caused the Argentine state a loss of at least $1bn (£818m).
Fernández de Kirchner had vehemently denied all the allegations against her.
Fernández de Kirchner will not be sent to prison immediately, Even though she has been found guilty and sentenced to a jail term.
As the head of the senate, she enjoys a degree of immunity which means that she will be able to remain free and continue in her post while she appeals against the verdict all the way to the Supreme Court.
As the appeal process could take years, she is expected to be able to run again for the senate or even for the presidency in the 2023 election.
Despite this latest setback, she remains a popular figure with many in the South American nation, who turned out to show their support after the verdict was made public.
