MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

CFK links her corruption trial to the murder attempt against her

CFK underlined that the lawyers of the Snowflake Gang were linked to Macrist lawmakers

Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) Friday told the court judging her for alleged corruption in the awarding of public bids to build roads while she was President (2008-15), that the case under treatment was linked to her assassination attempt earlier this month.

 CFK, who claims to be a lawyer although her degree has never been made public, was allowed to take the stand as a law graduate in self-representation.

In her virtual allocution from her chambers at the National Congress building, she argued that her “constitutional guarantees are all suspended since December 10, 2015,” when Mauricio Macri took over. “I live in a permanent state of siege,” she said.

Her defense team requested she be acquitted of all charges. Prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola had requested a 12-year jail sentence.

CFK's counselor Alberto Beraldi recalled that Luciani and Mola had based part of the accusation on the level of completion of the works under controversy, which should be measured by comparing “the degree of compliance of other companies awarded public works in the rest of the country” during the same period, while the former head of state focused her speech on the alleged political motivations behind the case.

“Until September 1st I thought that all this was to stigmatize me and Peronism. Now I realize that because of this game you have played there may be something else behind all this. From the judicial sphere, social license is given so that anyone can think and do anything,” she argued.

Regarding the so-called members of the “Snowflake Gang” under arrest for the attack, CFK insisted that “Nobody can think [they] planned the intellectual authorship of what they did to me” and that they are only the “material authors” of the thwarted attack. CFK also accused the Judiciary of granting a “social license so that anyone can think and do anything.”

She also underlined that the lawyers of the detainees were linked to Macrist lawmakers.

Meanwhile, Fernando Sabag Montiel, Brenda Uliarte, Agustina Diaz, and Gabriel Carrizo, the four members of the Snowflake Gang, a name given to them for selling cotton candy in front of CFK's home as a cover, were transferred Friday to two separate maximum security prisons.