Kircher has denied wrongdoing and is expected to appeal. She has called the court a “firing squad” engaged in political persecution that’s aimed at keeping her from running for a third term as president next year. As vice president and a senator, she enjoys immunity from incarceration and the ban from running for public office until her appeals are exhausted, which will likely take years.
Prosecutors said Kirchner funneled money to construction magnate Lázaro Báez when she was president from 2007 to 2015. Several officials from her administration have been convicted in separate corruption cases.
During her tenure and that of her late husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner, companies owned by Báez were awarded government dozens of contracts to build road infrastructure in Santa Cruz province. The vast, sparsely populated province in southern Argentina was the Kirchners’ home province and the base from which they launched their political dynasty in the 1980s.
Prosecutor Diego Luciani called the case “one of the most extraordinary corruption schemes” in Argentine history. Authorities say some 46 billion pesos were awarded to Baez for 51 road projects from 2003 to 2015; prosecutors say nearly half of them were not completed.
Báez registered his company Austral Construction days before Kirchner was sworn in as president in 2003.
“Lázaro Báez, a friend of the then-President and a business partner, became a construction businessman overnight,” Luciani said during the trial’s accusation phase.
Báez, too, was convicted Tuesday and sentenced to six years, as was former public works secretary José López.
The conviction is a first for Kirchner, who has been investigated on several charges. She was acquitted of some; others were dismissed. They have included corruption charges, but also an accusation that she helped cover up Iran’s alleged role in bombing a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994.
The verdict comes at a difficult time for this South American nation. Annual inflation is approaching 100 percent. spiraling around 100% per year and looming risks of social turmoil. Kirchner was targeted in a botched assassination attempt outside her apartment in Buenos Aires. When Luciani requested a 12-year sentence in August, thousands of Kirchner’s supporters took to the streets to express their dismay.