The first stage of the trial of the so-called Cuadernos Cause is about to conclude after several hearings full of requests for annulment from the defenses. The preliminary issues ranged from requests to annul the process due to alleged unacceptable irregularities to proposals to invalidate investigations taken “under pressure.” In that context, the prosecutor’s response will arrive this Thursday.
Without a doubt, this is one of the most important trials in recent years. In principle due to the number of former officials and top-level businessmen who are accused, but also – and more than anything – due to the significant number of questions about the apparent procedural irregularities on which a case was mounted that is carried out with a strong push from media power.
The Rovella case
After the hearings reading the accusations formulated by prosecutor Carlos Stornelli, the oral process moved to the stage of preliminary issues. One of the last defenses that took the floor to complain before the members of the Federal Oral Court 7 was that of businessman Mario Rovella, led by lawyer Pablo Medrano.
The defender was the first to speak at the hearing last Tuesday and described once again a situation that predominates in the stories of several of the accused: that he was pressured to testify.
Rovella is the owner of Rovella-Carranza, an important construction company dedicated to road, hydraulic and engineering works. The prosecution accuses him of committing the crime of active bribery and places him as one of the businessmen who would have paid bribes through the syndicated financier Ernesto Clarens. The latter was the one who presented a list to the court in which the names of the businessmen from whom he apparently charged appear, among whom Rovella appears.
From that point on, the construction businessman was called for investigation. It was at the end of February 2019 when he appeared before the late judge Cluadio Bonadío but, a day before, he appeared at a notary’s office to record that what he was going to declare was a lie. Since then, his defense maintains that he made a series of admissions that incriminated him in exchange for not being imprisoned. In his surroundings they told him Time that there was no specific episode in a threatening tone aimed at forcing his statement but that the mere observation of the context led him to choose to tell the judge what the judge wanted to hear and thus avoid jail.
«Judge Bonadío, who was supposed to listen to my assistant, had already informed the Penitentiary Service to provide for his accommodation in a prison establishment in the event that my client remained silent or denied the charges. Mario Rovella’s confession was obtained under intimidation expressed in procedural acts consisting of depriving the liberty of those who did not validate Clarens’ notes,” said his defender during the hearing this Tuesday.
Rovella’s defense has raised the annulment of the investigative statement for supposedly having been given under pressure in several instances prior to the trial. So far they have all been rejections. In the run-up to the oral and public process, he was also among the group of businessmen who offered money as financial compensation to end the accusation. He didn’t have any luck either.
The stories that show that there would have been judicial pressure in exchange for statements that implicate Kirchner political officials such as former president Cristina Kirchner herself, also accused, abound in the case of the notebooks. The great questioning points to the use given by the Bonadío-Stornelli tandem to the figure of the repentant or accused collaborator. From there, there are plenty of criticisms of the development of the process that, for defenses like that of the former president, are “unsound” and merit the annulment of the trial.
Tax response
This Thursday, the Public Prosecutor’s Office will have its turn to raise preliminary questions. But it also has the possibility of responding to the flood of proposals expressed by the representatives of former officials and businessmen.
The official confirmation is that it will focus on the latter. It is also expected that the prosecutor will insist on her claims to speed up the trial through a greater number of hearings and that the virtual format used until now will be put aside.
The defenses hope that once the prosecutor presents the case, judges Enrique Méndez Signori, Fernando Canero and Germán Castelli will go on to resolve each of the annulment claims. The expectations that they will be accepted are almost zero, since they could cause a cascade effect on the claims of other defendants, something that would put the continuity of the trial at risk. Once the judges’ resolution is reached, the stage of investigative statements of the 19 former officials and 65 businessmen who are in the dock will begin.
