Unexpectedly, Angelo Calcaterra, the cousin of the former president Mauricio Macri, He became the first repentant businessman in the case of the notebooks to get out of the future oral trial for the payment of those bribes by a decision of the Federal Court of Criminal Cassation. The decision also affected his main collaborator, Javier Sánchez Caballero, who was detained in this case. Cassation plays a key role: it not only opened the door to three other businessmen who were accused collaborators and asked for the same thing. Also, in two different rulings, He urged the Federal Oral Court 7 to speed up the oral trial in which former president Cristina Kirchner and men from her government are accused.
“We note that the data indicated, whose analysis the oral court disregarded, do not contradict the versions of Ángel Jorge Antonio Calcaterra and Héctor Javier Sánchez Caballero when they indicated that the attributed payments would have been motivated to finance the electoral campaigns of the political party Frente para the Victory of the years 2013 and 2015,” said Judge Daniel Petrone, accompanied by his colleagues Diego Barroetevaña and Carlos Mahiques, in a ruling to which he agreed. Infobae.
For Cassation, “The data is not isolated, it has already been verified” that the dates on which the money deliveries attributed to the accused took place “are contemporaneous with the electoral campaigns of the elections carried out in the years 2013 and 2015.” And he stated that the Oral Court “said nothing about the information provided by the appellant related to the fact that his clients, through the company Creaurban SA, made contributions to the 2007 presidential election campaign in favor of Frente para la Victoria. . This information is of interest because, as the defense alleges, it would indicate that the contribution of money to an electoral campaign was not a new fact for his clients.”
Prosecutor Ramiro González and Judge María Servini, with electoral jurisdiction, had claimed that the Calcaterra-Sánchez Caballero case should be processed in their jurisdiction. “In the criminal jurisdiction, faced with similar situations, the jurisdiction of electoral justice was established to understand these events considered as contributions to the electoral campaigns and beyond the fact that the situation of Calcaterra and Sánchez Caballero is at a more advanced stage of the criminal process. […] “The dynamics of the events cannot be analyzed in a different way since this would violate the procedure of the specialty of electoral jurisdiction,” it was noted. “Taking into account that the facts brought to study refer to the declaration by the accused of private contributions with which an electoral campaign would have been financed, the control of legality of said acts is in charge of that specialized jurisdiction.” It was the kick-off of this decision.
Calcaterra may not be the only one to benefit from this criterion. Although we will have to wait for his decision, yesterday Cassation gave the green light to the claims of incompetence that the businessmen had made. Hugo Dragonetti, Jorge Balán and Armando Loson. The three had testified as accused-collaborators when the case began. Loson also filed another case in which he denounced irregularities in the notes in the notebooks. Oscar Centeno in the events where he was mentioned, a case in which Judge Marcelo Martínez De Giorgi prosecuted the bus driver’s friend, Jorge Bacigalupo, who had the notebooks in his possession.
The prosecution or the complaining parties could now appeal the decision for review by the Supreme Court of Justice. However, for now, in the electoral jurisdiction, at this point, the case could be prescribed, they pointed out. Infobae sources who know the cause.
The Cassation decision was announced this Wednesday, late in the afternoon, prior to a long weekend. It occurred within the framework of another cataract of resolutions after a long period of silence on the file. At the end of May, prosecutor Fabiana León denounced the oral court for delay of justice in two of the files that make up the Cuadernos mega-case, which was born with the notes of the remisero Oscar Centeno but to which other related files were added – some existing , others that were born from the own sayings of the repentant. In two parallel resolutions, Chamber I and Chamber IV of the highest court urged the judges of the Oral Court to move forward with the oral trial. He was elevated by Judge Claudio Bonadio at the end of 2019 and still does not have a trial date.
In the countdown until, in one month and ten days, the sixth anniversary of that scandal being made public with raids, arrests and a flood of repentants, prosecutor León urged that the case reach an oral trial with all those involved in the bench: from Cristina Kirchner and her officials to the main businessmen who agreed to testify as accused-collaborators and detail the payments they had made on the trips headed by the former number 2 of Planning, Roberto Baratta. These trips were detailed in the notebooks of his driver Oscar Centeno and gave rise to this file.
With the impact of the case, the case added arrests and regrets. The first was Oscar Centeno himself. Later, one of the businessmen, Juan Goicochea, who had an arrest warrant out, chose that path. He arrived on vacation in Buenos Aires, after skiing. He knew they were going to arrest him. Before going to prison, he also preferred the plea deal. Thus began a domino effect that continued for weeks, with former officials and businessmen parading between the mayor’s office, the prosecutor’s office and the court.
Even Mauricio Macri’s cousin, Angelo Calcaterra, was on the verge of going to prison when his main right-hand man Javier Sánchez Caballero, CEO of IECSA, was arrested. “Since the beginning of the Government of Dr. Néstor Kirchner, we had an unfavorable context towards our business group in general and towards the IECSA company in particular. As an example, you can indicate that on the occasion of a business meeting in Venezuela (Néstor) Kirchner, meeting with the then president (Hugo) Chávez, asked Calcaterra to come closer and when he did, the former told Chávez that he was his cousin. greatest political opponent (…) Mr. Baratta began to demand that Angelo Calcaterra to put money into the campaigns. Over time, the demand became stronger and at one point he gave in to the pressure by handing over money,” he declared at the time.
At first, Calcaterra had no luck with his proposals to have the case go to the electoral jurisdiction, unlike other businessmen who had appeared before Judge Claudio Bonadio and managed, before the file reached trial, for it to go to the court. electoral jurisdiction. There were Manuel Santos Uribelarrea, Eduardo Antranik Eurnekian and Alejandro Ivanissevich. But the rest were sent to trial.
“Devoted to the analysis of the issue that comes to us from the appeal filed by the private defense of Ángel Jorge Antonio Calcaterra and Héctor Javier Sánchez Caballero, we anticipate that this party is right and we consider that the lady judge with electoral jurisdiction is the one who The investigation must continue regarding the alleged acts – said Casación -. We note, as the appellant asserts, the absence of treatment or evaluation of what was claimed by the defense of Calcaterra and Sánchez Caballero, who, since the presentation of the first of those named as an accused collaborator, repeatedly and consistently pointed out that the “The destination of the indicated funds was contributions from the campaigns of the years 2013 and 2015 for the political party Frente para la Victoria.”
And it was added: “Calcaterra spontaneously appeared in the process as an accused collaborator and, in that context, recognized certain deliveries of money, expressly indicating their cause and destination. It is not a minor fact that, as the appellant states, the destination of the funds – the campaign contributions – were a fact introduced voluntarily by Calcaterra who appeared at the beginning of the process before the Criminal and Correctional Court No. 11 of the jurisdiction when he had not yet been summoned or named”
With this background, it is clear that there are several businessmen who will insist that their case be analyzed in light of the moment in which they made their money deliveries. For now, three have already managed to get Cassation to open their complaint.
In the meantime, Cassation – in response to the prosecutor’s proposal – resolved in two simultaneous rulings that the Federal Oral Court expedite the oral trial without delays. “This is – most likely – the largest case of corruption that, in the history of the Argentine Republic, has been submitted to the jurisdiction of a Court,” said Judge Claudio Bonadio who investigated the case at that time. “It was established that from the highest levels of the Nation, the foundations were laid for a matrix of corruption, which was established during the presidential regime of Néstor Carlos Kirchner (2003-2007), and was maintained during the two presidential terms of Cristina Elisabet Fernández (2007-2015). “More than twelve years of corruption and impunity, without a solution to continuity, at the highest state level.”
