Argentina
A prosecutor asked the Court of Cassation to review the dismissal of the case over the 2018 agreement with the IMF
José Agüero Iturbe appealed the filing of the case over the loan agreed during Mauricio Macri’s government. He argued that the investigation was closed before pending evidence measures were exhausted.
Prosecutor before the court José Agüero Iturbe asked the Federal Criminal Court of Cassation to review the dismissal of the case that investigated the agreement for US$57,100 million signed with the International Monetary Fund in 2018, during the administration of Mauricio Macri.
The investigation reached the former president and former Cambiemos officials such as Luis Caputo, Nicolás Dujovne, Federico Sturzenegger and Guido Sandleris. According to La Nación and also reported by BAE Negocios, Agüero Iturbe told the Court of Cassation that the closing of the case was “premature” and “arbitrary,” in line with the position already raised by prosecutor Franco Picardi.
According to both media outlets, the prosecutor argued that there were still investigative measures to be carried out and questioned the case being archived without moving forward with steps that would have allowed the procedural scope to be defined.
The case had been dismissed by Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti and that decision was later upheld by Chamber I of the Federal Court. Judges Mariano Llorens and Pablo Bertuzzi considered it a political decision and said the prosecution had not proven the existence of crimes. According to La Nación and BAE Negocios, the judges held that there are matters belonging to other branches of government that fall outside judicial review.
The Public Prosecutor’s objection was based on a 2020 report by the Auditor General’s Office of the Nation. According to La Nación and BAE Negocios, it mentioned breaches in the processing of the agreement, concerns about debt sustainability and alleged administrative irregularities, including the absence of a presidential decree formalizing the understanding.
Now the Court of Cassation must rule. The agreement with the IMF had been announced in June 2018 for nearly US$43,000 million and was later expanded in September of that year to US$57,100 million. The last disbursements were not made after the change of government in 2019, but the repayment scheme remains in force.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited media outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this event.
