Máximo Kirchner, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s son, vehemently denied reports that he has any bank accounts abroad, angrily describing the accusations as a part of a plot by opposition media to discredit the government and its accomplishments.
«Let me make this clear: I never had, nor do I have, any (bank) account abroad,» Kirchner said in a radio interview this morning,»Absolutely nothing.»
The leader of the Kirchnerite youth group La Cámpora, who rarely talks to the media, angrily refuted reports published on Monday by Clarín newspaper and the Brazilian news magazine Veja that claimed Máximo Kirchner holds a joint bank account with former Defence minister and current Argentine Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Nilda Garré that holds millions of dollars. The reports also claimed the pair had investments in Iran.
The reports amount to a “dirty trick” by the media that ultimately represent the latest in a string of attacks against the government following the mysterious death of AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, Kirchner said. The president’s son added that he has not even left the country since 2002.
“I respect Nilda (Garré) very much, her history speaks for itself, the way she supported Néstor (Kirchner) and Cristina (Fernández de Kirchner). It is a dirty trick. It hasn’t been checked,» Máximo Kirchner told radio host Victor Hugo Morales this morning. «This isn’t some minor piece of information — we aren’t saying whether someone bought a car or not — this involves very sensitive issues such as nuclear energy.
For the president’s son, the latest reports by the media outlets amount to revenge on a government that has sought to curtail the power of big business. “They want to hurt us because they don’t understand how a government managed to say enough to them. They’re used to exercising their power by giving orders to presidents. That is what hurts them.”
Kirchner went on to say that the media outlets are unconcerned with the truth.
“It doesn’t matter if what they say is true or a lie, the goal is to make some damage,” Máximo Kirchner said, adding that these types of stories gives media outlets that are critical of the government a convenient excuse to keep the complaint filed by Alberto Nisman on their front pages. Days before he was found dead in his apartment on January 18, Nisman accused Fernández de Kirchner and top government officials of seeking to cover up Iran’s alleged role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre that killed 85 people. His complaint has been dismissed as baseless by two courts.
Máximo Kirchner granted the rare radio interview this morning mere hours after he released a statement yesterday denying the accusations, and characterizing the two media outlets that published the news as «monsters» and «not just due to the size of their companies.”
The claims are not just false, but also «ridiculous, and what is worse, absolutely predictable,» the son of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the late Néstor Kirchner said.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald