BUENOS AIRES: Argentine ex-president Cristina Kirchner, who is serving a six-year fraud sentence under house arrest, goes on trial Thursday in a separate case for allegedly taking millions of dollars in bribes.
The center-left Kirchner, a dominant and polarizing figure in Argentine politics for over two decades, served two terms from 2007-2015.
Her latest trial comes as her ailing Peronist movement — named after iconic post-war leader Juan Peron — reels from its stinging defeat at the hands of right-wing President Javier Milei’s party in last month’s midterm elections.
Milei has hailed the result as a vindication of his radical free-market agenda, which the Peronists, champions of state intervention in the economy, vehemently oppose.
The so-called “notebooks” scandal revolves around records kept by a government chauffeur of cash bribes he claims to have delivered from businessmen to government officials between 2003-2015.
Kirchner, 72, was first lady from 2003-2007, when her late husband Nestor Kirchner was president.
She succeeded him after his term ended and then later served as vice president to Alberto Fernandez from 2019 until 2023, when Milei took office.
Kirchner is accused of leading a criminal enterprise that took bribes from businesspeople in return for the awarding of state contracts.
Eighty-seven people are accused in the case, including a former minister and several junior ministers.
Kirchner, who was placed under house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor in June after being convicted of “fraudulent administration” as president, maintains she is the victim of a politically-inspired judicial hounding.
It was not clear whether she will appear at the trial by video-conference from her home in Buenos Aires.
She faces between six and 10 years in prison if convicted at the end of what is expected to be a lengthy trial.
Her lawyers have cast doubt on the credibility of the entries in the chauffeur’s notebooks, saying they were changed over 1,500 times.
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Argentine ex-president Kirchner goes on trial in new corruption case
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Argentine ex-president Kirchner goes on trial in new corruption case
- Kirchner is accused of leading a criminal enterprise that took bribes from businesspeople in return for the awarding of state contracts
Russia sends ‘hundreds’ of missiles, drones at Ukraine
Russia pounded Ukraine with drones and ballistic missiles overnight on Thursday, targeting energy systems and injuring at least seven people in the capital Kyiv, and the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, officials said.
“Hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles targeted energy systems, depriving people of power, heating, and water,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.
Two people were hurt in a “massive” attack on Kyiv, which also hit various buildings, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Klitschko said on Telegram there had been hits on both residential and non-residential buildings on both sides of the Dnipro River bisecting the city.
Fragments had fallen near two residential buildings in one district, but no fire had broken out.
Reuters witnesses heard explosions resound in the city.
Four people, including a baby boy and a four-year-old girl, were hurt in a missile and drone attack on the southeastern city of Dnipro and surrounding district, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said on Telegram.
One person was hurt in a drone attack on the southern city of Odesa on the Black Sea, which also damaged an infrastructure facility and an apartment building where a fire broke out at an upper floor, head of the city’s military administration, Serhiy Lysak said.
Lysak also said that a fire engulfed pavilions at one of the city’s markets and damaged a supermarket building.
Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said that energy infrastructure was damaged in Odesa district.
’BLOW TO PEACE EFFORTS’
“Each such strike is a blow to peace efforts aimed at ending the war. Russia must be forced to take diplomacy seriously and de-escalate,” Sybiha said.
Ukrainian officials have met Russian officials under US mediation in Abu Dhabi in the latest US push to end the war.
But the talks so far have failed to resolve differences over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, sources say, and Russia has pressed on with attacks often focused on Ukrainian
energy facilities
in the depths of a harsh winter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday the US needed
to put more pressure on Russia
if it wanted the war to end by summer.
“Hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles targeted energy systems, depriving people of power, heating, and water,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.
Two people were hurt in a “massive” attack on Kyiv, which also hit various buildings, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Klitschko said on Telegram there had been hits on both residential and non-residential buildings on both sides of the Dnipro River bisecting the city.
Fragments had fallen near two residential buildings in one district, but no fire had broken out.
Reuters witnesses heard explosions resound in the city.
Four people, including a baby boy and a four-year-old girl, were hurt in a missile and drone attack on the southeastern city of Dnipro and surrounding district, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said on Telegram.
One person was hurt in a drone attack on the southern city of Odesa on the Black Sea, which also damaged an infrastructure facility and an apartment building where a fire broke out at an upper floor, head of the city’s military administration, Serhiy Lysak said.
Lysak also said that a fire engulfed pavilions at one of the city’s markets and damaged a supermarket building.
Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said that energy infrastructure was damaged in Odesa district.
’BLOW TO PEACE EFFORTS’
“Each such strike is a blow to peace efforts aimed at ending the war. Russia must be forced to take diplomacy seriously and de-escalate,” Sybiha said.
Ukrainian officials have met Russian officials under US mediation in Abu Dhabi in the latest US push to end the war.
But the talks so far have failed to resolve differences over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, sources say, and Russia has pressed on with attacks often focused on Ukrainian
energy facilities
in the depths of a harsh winter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday the US needed
to put more pressure on Russia
if it wanted the war to end by summer.
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