Judges Barroetaveña and Petrone rejected prosecutor León’s proposal but asked to speed up the procedural steps. The Court had responded that it is analyzing the request for more than 1,800 witnesses and 700 additional measures of evidence.
adulterated. The analysis was carried out on the digitized copies of the notebooks “reappeared” in 2019 that the Justice Department never examined. The address “Alem 855” was rewritten on top of another; names of supposed contacts were changed; parts were erased; “Blank” spaces were left to complete locations or street names with space for numbering.
A decision regarding the case known as LNG -Liquefied Natural Gas- headed by former Minister of Planning Julio De Vido, drags a definition that impacts the mega cause “Cuadernos”elevated to oral trial and in the preparation stage for years, due to the magnitude of an eventual debate, unprecedented in history.
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In a simple decision, the judges of Chamber I of Cassation Diego Barroetaveña and Daniel Petrone They rejected a request for delay of justice that had been filed by the trial prosecutor Fabiana León, due to the alleged absence of a response to their claims from the members of the Federal Oral Court No. 7. However, they urged the judges to accelerate at full speed to complete the procedural steps required by the code and to set a date to begin the oral trial.
Lion sought to challenge the judges alleging that they were delaying the issuance of the order of admissibility of evidence that would unblock setting a certain date for the start of the oral trial. He blamed them for the fact that it has been elevated for five years and that the test was offered for three years and was expanded to supplementary instruction, which is an investigation that the TOF itself carries out before the debate to complete the test begins. The prosecutor now proposed separating “GNL”, which she acted as a kind of platform on which “Cuadernos” was attached to it during the investigation, which, at the time, allowed the mega case to remain in the hands of Claudio Bonadio.
The maneuver of inserting it as a detachment from a previous file avoided the challenge that everything carried out by the duo Bonadio – Carlos Stornelli should have been drawn up so that another different judge could intervene. LNG was one of the first resonant causes that impacted the former Ministry of Planning. However, it was marred by scandals: Bonadio’s decision included an expert opinion that was revealed to be false regarding the import of LNG ships with surcharges during the Kirchner government. Expert witness David Cohen ended up being put on trial for false testimony.
What the TOF revealed about Cuadernos
The Cassation judges reported that on June 3 they requested a report from TOF 7. From this document, it is clear that León formulated three consecutive proposals in eleven days, which annoyed the judges, who complained that a comprehensive look at everything involved in the “Cuadernos” file and its related cases was ignored. Then they remembered that they have “meager resources” and that they had to close a courtroom to store documentation “because they lacked the slightest and most decent space to face a process of this magnitude.”
They justified that during these years they had to attend “innumerable incidents” of the more than 100 defendants that there are among all the related patrimonial, personal and procedural causes. The TOF took the opportunity to remember that since 2019 it has requested building, technical and personnel resources (only the latter was attended to) to be able to carry out the oral trial.
But what is relevant is that the TOF admitted that it is analyzing the subpoena request requested by the parties for 1,800 witnesses that should make up the list of testimonials. Never before in history has there been a similar number of possible call-ups. Likewise, he revealed that There are around 700 test measures within the framework of supplemental instructiona number that would delay any tentative start of oral debate for years, until they are completed.
