Echegaray acquitted for alleged false complaint to Prat Gay – News

The Federal Court of Justice (TOF) 4 acquitted former AFIP chief Ricardo Echegaray of the alleged false allegation against former Finance Minister Alfonso Prat Gay.

In the verdict pronounced Friday at noon in the federal courts of Comodoro Py, TOF 4 also acquitted the other two former AFIP officials denounced, Horacio Curien and Pedro Roveda.

"Part of the process of political persecution against me has ended," said Echegaray during a dialogue with Télam after hearing the verdict, whose foundations will be known on November 8, as announced by the judges.

The case was initiated by a complaint filed by the former deputy finance minister of the government of Cambiemos, Prat Gay, against Echegaray and other former officials of the AFIP he accused of having falsely denounced in as facilitator of an alleged maneuver. Escape attributed to the late businesswoman Amalia Lacroze of Fortabat.

Prat Gay had been denounced as being an alleged "facilitator" in his proxy role for the late Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat businesswoman, following a $ 68 million deposit on a bank account. HSBC bank in Switzerland, which according to AFIP This has not been declared.

"The persecution in this case was that of the offshore financial system headed by the former Minister of Economy Mauricio Macri," Echegaray said at the end of the hearing during which he had obtained the favorable verdict.

"The 68 million dollars detected (from Fortabat) could not be validated as declared in Geneva (Switzerland)," said the former head of the AFIP.

"When there is evidence, such as the expertise that was done in this trial, it is proven that everything was armed. It was possible to demonstrate that the denounced funds (over $ 4,000 million of different holders) had never been reported in the AFIP, "Echegaray said.

The former Kirchner official said that one of the objectives of the complaint that had led him to the bar of the accused was to turn the complaint into tax fraud reported by the AFIP during his administration, while he was behind the HSBC bank. in which undeclared accounts have been detected.

At first instance, the case had been brought by the federal judge Claudio Bonadio and the prosecutor Carlos Stornelli, and by the indictment against Echegaray, the former head of the AFIP had to leave the post of president of the audit General of the Nation (AGN).

"That's why I had to leave the AGN, where I went to work with the mission of controlling the executive power; therefore, with this cause, they have achieved their political goal, "said the former head of the AFIP.

The complaint of Prat Gay asked 12 years of prison for Echegaray for instigating the false complaint, the abuse of authority and the violation of the secret, although the public prosecutor Dafne Palópoli only asked for 2 years and did not prosecute for instigation of the false complaint

Finally, the judges of TOF 4, Néstor Costabel, Gabriela López Iñíguez and Daniel Obligado, pronounced their acquittal.