Within the next two weeks, Federal judge Ariel Lijo will order Vice-President Amado Boudou to stand trial for his role in the transfer of the former Ciccone mint, the company that prints the country’s peso notes. The magistrate is likely to make that decision after the Federal Cassation Court, the country’s highest criminal court yesterday confirmed the indictment of the vice-president for bribery and negotiations incompatible with public office, sources from the Comodoro Py courthouse told the Herald.
Judges Gustavo Hornos, Mariano Borinsky and Juan Carlos Gemignani yesterday confirmed the indictment issued by Lijo on June 27 last year against Boudou, his business associate and friend José María Núñez Carmona and Nicolás Tadeo Ciccone, the former owner of the mint company. His resolution had also been backed by the Federal Criminal Appeals Court on February 19.
For his part, Lijo believes that the investigation into Boudou’s role in the case is over and the Vice-President can be sent to trial. As soon as the file arrives at his office on the third floor of the courthouse located in the City neighbourhood of Retiro, he will be starting the paperwork to do so. But judicial sources yesterday estimated that the proceeding may be possibly delayed until after President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner leaves office . The request will have to be backed by federal prosecutor Jorge Di Lello, who charged the vice-president with bribery earlier last year. Boudou and the other defendants will probably file requests to avoid the public trial, which will have to be reviewed by the Appeals Court and the Cassation Court.
Last year, the Appeals Court ordered Lijo to follow the money trail in order to explain which funds were used to purchase Ciccone, a long-term claim by Boudou. The company was bought in 2010 by lawyer Alejandro Vandenbroele, who was also indicted and — according to the magistrate — operated as Boudou’s front man.
The tribunal also recommended Lijo question AFIP tax bureau head Ricardo Echegaray. The agency helped the company lift its bankruptcy so that it could start to operate again.
Lijo has been following that line of investigation as well and does not rule out incorporating it as a separate part of the case, though sources close to the judge made it clear that he will be asking to send the vice-president to trial as soon as the file gets back from the Cassation Court.
Boudou is likely to stand another trial before. Federal Judge Claudio Bonadío has asked the Federal Oral Court No. 1 to put Boudou on the dock for allegedly counterfeiting the papers of a Honda car he owned. The request was made in December last year.
Lijo and Di Lello are also investigating Boudou for alleged embezzlement. The judge is said to be waiting the analysis that is being carried out by Supreme Court accountants.
Cassation Court
Borinsky, Hornos and Gemignani confirmed the indictment of Boudou, Núñez Carmona, Ciccone and Vandenbroele but also the charges against former AFIP tax bureau official Rafael Resnick Brenner and former Economy Ministry official Guido Forcieri.
The three judges agreed that there were no liberties at stake. Earlier this year, Javier de Luca — the federal prosecutor before the Cassation Court — ruled in favour of rejecting the requests filed by the defendants, making it clear that there wasn’t a situation of institutional graveness, as Boudou’s lawyers claimed.
The case
After questioning the vice-president for more than seven hours on June 9 last year, Judge Lijo decided not to wait and to indict the Kirchnerite official for the role he played in the transfer of the Ciccone company in 2010, while he was Fernández de Kirchner’s Economy minister. The decision came after weeks of dispute with Boudou, who accused Lijo of working hand-in-hand with the opposition media.
On October 19, the AFIP tax bureau gave the green light to lifting Ciccone’s bankruptcy and also agreed on a payment plan to allow the company to print again. In 2012, the Congress approved Ciccone mint company’s nationalization. According to Lijo, that was a manoeuvre aimed at hiding the evidence of Boudou’s alleged crime.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald