Former president of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner gestures to supporters after the Supreme Court docket of Argentina confirmed her sentence to six years in jail for corruption and lifelong ban from public workplace.
Marcos Brindicci/Getty Photographs South America
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Marcos Brindicci/Getty Photographs South America
BOGOTA, Colombia — Certainly one of Argentina’s strongest—and polarizing—political figures is heading to jail. Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has been sentenced to six years for corruption and completely banned from holding public workplace.
Kirchner, 72, who led Argentina for 2 phrases from 2007 to 2015, was discovered responsible in 2022 of steering dozens of public works contracts throughout her presidency to a building firm owned by an in depth good friend. The case, one of the crucial high-profile corruption trials within the nation’s current historical past, has sharply divided Argentines.
Kirchner and her legal professionals appealed the conviction, as her supporters launched giant protests—blocking roads and gathering outdoors the Supreme Court docket in Buenos Aires. However on Tuesday, the Justices upheld each the sentence and the lifetime political ban.
In a decision supplied to the Related Press the judges mentioned the sentence “does nothing greater than to guard our republican and democratic system.”
Talking outdoors the courtroom, Kirchner denounced the ruling as politically motivated, accusing the judges of “proscribing the favored vote”. She had been planning a political comeback by operating for native workplace—an elected place, that if she’d had received, would have granted the Peronist politician authorized immunity.
Even after leaving the presidency, Kirchner remained a dominant pressure in Argentine politics, serving as vice chairman from 2019 to 2023.
The leftist politician has been a fierce critic of President Javier Milei’s administration and retains a loyal base that sees her conviction as an try and silence her. Hailed by her supporters as a champion of the poor, she was additionally blamed by critics for overseeing the nation’s unravelling financial troubles, together with hovering inflation.
President Milei took to social media to applaud the decision, with out mentioning the previous president by title, writing in a publish on X, “Justice. Interval.”
Due to her age, Kirchner is more likely to serve her sentence beneath home arrest, as allowed beneath Argentine legislation for defendants over 70.
