Notebooks: Techint executives fired due to government oversight, which is now looking for internal culprits

The Financial reporting unit decided to summarize the lawyers of the organization that they did not appeal the dismissal of the directors of Technical due to notebooks, revealed to Infobae judicial sources. It is because the oblivion of the UIF, in its role of complainant, and the absence of appeal from the prosecution seem to have sealed the fate of the CEO of Techint. Paul Rocca; the director of the company Luis Betnaza, and the alleged person responsible for handing over the money to Kirchner officials Hector Zabaleta -Who recognized these payments as “regret“-.

Sources from the body headed by Carlos Cruz confirmed to this media the open summary for the lawyers who did not appeal the judge’s decision in time Julien Ercolini on August 10, when, on the one hand, the former head of the Plan was sued Roberto Baratta for gifts, but Techint executives were fired for understanding that the payments they admitted were justified on humanitarian grounds.

The FIU had already dismissed the director of criminal litigation, Claudio Castelli, direct head of lawyers who conduct court cases. The intern had been revealed by Infobae last June when a series of audios leaked which revealed some sort of “war” within the organization. Judicial sources now indicated that the body’s position within the FIU was not unrelated to this conflict, a version that has come to light amid the government crisis that was unveiled last week after the defeat of PASO.

The FIU did not publicly explain what had happened. However, it turned out that authorities learned that Techint’s dismissal was final when an international agency released the statement the company issued to celebrate the news.

Now agency sources have admitted Infobae that an internal investigation was opened to seek responsibility for this criminal inaction in the case of the notebooks. In the meantime, there is a proposal to try and declare “res judicata“The decision that left Techint’s businessmen out of the woods. “We are facing a case which constitutes an ‘attack on the democratic system’,” said the presentation.

The case

Everything stems from the decision rendered on August 10 by the federal judge Julien Ercolini, as part of a small section of the cause of the cause of notebooks that is still under investigation. The bulk of the case is before the Federal Oral Tribunal 7. Vice-President Cristina Kirchner is accused of having led an illicit association with a group of officials headed by the former Minister of Planning Julio from Vido which made it possible to collect money between businessmen who did business with the government.

The tests came from notebooks written by Roberto Baratta’s driver, Oscar Centeno; and the copies of which were handed over by a journalist to prosecutor Carlos Stornelli. Centeno became an “accused-collaborator” and today lives under the witness protection program. The cause of the notebooks – Kirchnerism likes to call it “photocopies” – caused an earthquake in mid-2018, with the arrest of businessmen and officials, many notebooks. He was Infobae the one who detected Techint’s name among the businessmen mentioned by Centeno.

Although most of the businessmen were tried for corruption (paying bribes), Techint’s fate was different. First because Paolo Rocca was initially prosecuted by the late judge Claudio Bonadio, But the Federal House understood that, as the businessman said, he could not know the handling of the money his subordinates were making. Yes, Luis Betnaza and Héctor Zabaleta were prosecuted, who assured that from the then Federal Ministry of Planning they had asked for money so that the Argentine government could intervene before Hugo chavez due to the delicate situation of the personnel of the companies that the group had in Venezuela. Second, because when he requested the elevation at trial, Prosecutor Stornelli understood that there were still issues to be investigated in the investigation and did not include them in the elevation at trial.

Last August, after a defense, Judge Ercolini, provisionally in charge of the tribunal which belonged to Bonadio, pronounced the dismissal of Techint’s men, including Zabaleta, who had declared themselves as an accused-collaborator recognizing a crime. At the same time, the judge treated Baratta for gifts, that is, he received the money from Techint. There were no longer any former officials prosecuted in the Techint chapter. “The lack of responsibility in the events of the businessmen to whom the delivery of the money has been attributed – which originates from the request of the official in an emergency situation – does not prevent the official from receiving money. public money involved, it turns out that this is a behavior that is subsumed directly under the criminal type analyzedsaid Ercolini.

On September 9, at the close of the PASO electoral campaign, the president Alberto Fernandez he criticized Judge Ercolini for his ruling. But this decision had a deadline to appeal. The prosecution did not. And neither does the FIU, in its role of complainant.

Later, however, the complaint attempted to “uphold” the appeal brought by Baratta’s defense, in charge of Alejandro Rúa and Graciana Peñafort, by your own treatment. However, the chances of being accepted were near nil, as Infobae reported on August 27 by three criminal lawyers involved in the case. The point is, Baratta’s accusation did not cause any prejudice to the FIU, as if – anyway – the termination of the investigation against Techint could.

The Federal Chamber dismissed their appeal as inadmissible. And last Friday, he also denied in harsh terms the UIF’s request to open the appeal that would allow them to seize the Federal Criminal Cassation Chamber. “It is not unknown that the temperament which underlies the resolutions in question, supposes to definitively close the process vis-à-vis some of the defendants in the procedure. However, the path the actions have mapped out makes it impossible to observe such an extreme against the way the parties involved would behave. As the superior pointed out, the interested parties cannot apply to the Federal Court of Criminal Cassation to correct the deficit in their performance, demonstrated at the time of not adapting to the normative parameters that govern each procedural instance. », Declared judges Pablo Bertuzzi and Leopoldo Bruglia last Friday in a resolution viewed by this media.

“In the present case, its late presentation (by the FIU) to challenge the decision – once the appeal to which it intended to adhere was rejected, among other things – implies a position which cannot be reversed by going now to the way envisaged “, it was added. . During these hours, the FIU tries to reach the members of Chamber I of the Federal Criminal Cassation Chamber by way of complaint.

“Thing deemed irritating”

But as the FIU tries to move forward, the famous lawyer Alberto Binder, as Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Economic Crime (Cat) and the Institute of Comparative Studies in Criminal and Social Sciences (To start), appeared in the case to request that the “res judicata irrita “ as a result of this resolution. “Irritic res judicata” is an uncomfortable figure for the court world which is applied when it is shown that in a trial the rules of due process have not been observed or when the judges have acted independently and impartiality.

In his presentation that he accepted Infobae, Binder argued that Ercolini’s dismissals were “only as a direct consequence of the unlawful inactivity of the prosecution of crimes by the prosecutor in charge of the case and the plaintiff at the head of the Unity of financial information, a situation which constitutes a case of res judicata irritated, according to the doctrine and the case law in force in the matter ”.

Binder asserted that the prosecution “let the time limit run” for the appeal and “strikingly, it was the same criterion used by the head of the Financial Information Unit, who did not appeal against the decision to release the aforementioned businessmen, without For to the detriment of the fact that he subsequently improperly attempted to accede to the appeal that, logically, the defense of the accused Baratta brought against the prosecution , in the exercise of his rights ”.

In a specific way, the criminal prosecutor asked for the reinstatement of the procedural deadlines in order to properly formulate the appeal against the Ercolini judgment. “The request that we are formulating before the Court is nothing more than a remedial measure which would make it possible to correct the nullity of the accusatory inactivity”, he stressed. Undoubtedly, corruption and its relationship to decades-old business practices in the country have caused immeasurable social and institutional damage. In view of the foregoing, we note that this case concerns issues of social and institutional importance which far exceed the interests of the parties concerned, ”he added.

In this sense, Binder affirmed that “the resolution rendered by the investigating judge on August 10, adding to the recursive resignation shown by the prosecutor and the plaintiff, leaving in total impotence the defense of the general interests which concern the right to citizenship to have a good system of administration of justice and see this same idea materialize in the way in which the most serious cases of criminality are resolved, which are those which involve powerful actors ”. “There is no doubt that, by comparison, the power of influence of the Techint holding over the state apparatus far exceeds that of any public official online. It is nothing less than one of the main companies of the country (…) It is therefore a relevant actor, who is accused of his participation in offenses of bribery of a public official, without the possible participation other crimes related to the management of the Holding’s business can be excluded, ”he added.

The brief was presented to the Federal Chamber. Justices Bruglia and Bertuzzi returned the presentation to Ercolini for decision.

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