Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was sentenced for corruption. However, she is currently exempt from going to prison because of her role.
After she was found guilty for transferring money to herself, a Buenos Aires court sentenced her to six years in prison and disqualified her form holding any public office.
She denied the allegations, and dismissed the court’s status as a firing squad – adding that “This is a parallel State and judicial Mafia.”
Because her office grants her “temporary immunity”, the powerful vice president will not be in prison immediately.
The sentence will be appealed by her, and the case is likely to go through many higher courts over the years.
Although technically she could run for office while appeals are pending she stated Tuesday that she “wouldn’t be a candidate to anything” in the next year’s general election.
Ms. Fernandez de Kirchner was president for two terms, 2007-2015. She commands large crowds of support.
After she survived an assassination attempt in January, thousands gathered on the streets. Huge crowds also gathered outside the courtroom where she was sentenced on Tuesday.
Judges sentenced her as the “criminally accountable author of the crime fraudulent administration to detriment to the public administration” via livestream.
She was acquitted by the court of another count of “illicit associations”.
Prosecutors claimed that public works contracts were given to Lazaro Baez (a construction magnate and ally), who then fed the money to Fernandez de Kirchner’s late husband Nestor Kirchner.
Baez was also sentenced for six years.
Fernandez de Kirchner stated, “It is evident that the idea was always and forever to condemn me,” in a YouTube live video after the sentencing.
Argentinais at the edge of an economic crisis that has seen inflation rise to 100%.
