MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lawmaker requests Adorni's arrest over alleged witness tampering in illicit enrichment case

The 2017 Irurzun doctrine justifies pretrial detention for current or former officials if their ties to power could obstruct an ongoing legal investigation.

Argentine Congresswoman Marcela Pagano on Monday requested the arrest of Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni, accusing him of having pressured contractor Matías Tabar prior to his judicial testimony regarding the renovation works carried out at the home in the Indio Cua gated community. The filing, addressed to federal judge Ariel Lijo, invokes the so-called Irurzun doctrine and comes hours after Tabar testified that he received $245,000 in cash from the Cabinet Chief for the works on the property, in an alleged illicit enrichment case being conducted under federal prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita.

“I have just requested the arrest of Manuel Adorni for pressuring a witness through WhatsApp and offering him benefits in exchange for distorting his testimony. This is a clear obstruction of the investigation, and the Irurzun doctrine must be applied,” Pagano wrote on her X account. The libertarian lawmaker, who was the original complainant in the case, states in the filing that the official contacted the witness “immediately before his sworn testimony,” offering him “help” or the contact of his “team,” and seeking the deletion of the WhatsApp messages exchanged with the contractor. Tabar had confirmed in his statement to the prosecutor that he received that contact and that he ultimately rejected it after consulting his own lawyer, according to judicial sources.

The Irurzun doctrine, formulated in 2017 by federal appellate judge Martín Irurzun in the indictment of former Kirchnerist Planning Minister Julio De Vido, justifies preventive detention against officials or former officials when their power ties are presumed to obstruct the investigation. Pagano requests its application “by aggravated analogy,” arguing that Adorni's situation is more serious than those originally contemplated by the doctrine, given that it concerns concrete and current conduct by an official in active exercise of his post. As alternatives to detention, the congresswoman proposed a ban on contact with witnesses, the retention of the passport, an economic bond, and the preservation of the official's communications.

The complaint is part of a sequence that has intensified over recent weeks. Tabar declared that the works were carried out between October 2024 and July 2025 on a 400-square-metre lot, with payments in two stages — $55,000 in 2024 and $190,000 in 2025 — in cash and without invoicing. The property had been acquired in November 2024 by the Cabinet Chief's wife, Bettina Angeletti, for $120,000, half the amount declared for the subsequent renovation. The Casa Rosada has rejected the figure and announced it will request an expert assessment to refute the testimony.

The case has become one of the main political focal points of Javier Milei's government. Last week, Adorni refused to resign during his appearance before the Chamber of Deputies, where he declared: “I have committed no crime and I will prove it in court.” The Peronist caucus in Congress announced it will push for a motion of censure, a mechanism provided for in Article 101 of the Constitution that has never been applied since its establishment in 1994. Other witnesses linked to the official's real estate operations are scheduled to testify in the coming days.