In the “Vialidad” case, she was convicted of funneling 51 public works contracts in Santa Cruz province to a company belonging to her friend Lázaro Báez, in a process deemed fraudulent by Argentina’s judiciary.

The Supreme Court also upheld a verdict absolving her of charges of criminal association. The prosecution had asked for the additional charge to be incorporated, which would have resulted in a longer prison sentence. Kirchner addressed her supporters minutes outside the Justicialista Party headquarters after the verdict was announced.

“To the salary restrictions that Javier Milei’s government has imposed, the Judicial Party has added restrictions to the popular vote,” she said, comparing the ruling to the currency controls recently removed by the government.

She told the crowd that jailing her would not solve Argentina’s problems.

“They can imprison me, but pensions still won’t be enough and won’t reach the end of the month. They can imprison me, but medicines are more and more expensive and unaffordable, not just for pensioners but for everyone. They can imprison me, but parents will still believe their children have the right to eat four meals a day.”

President Javier Milei celebrated the ruling, writing “Justice. The end.” on X. He denied rumors that he had cut a deal with Kirchner to guarantee her impunity, calling it a smear by “corrupt journalists, accomplices of lying politicians.” He replaced each S with a $ sign.

Peronism rallies around CFK

Former President Alberto Fernández supported Kirchner, who was his Vice President. The two fell out while in office. “In a state under the rule of law, the opposition is not persecuted, but judged according to the law,” he wrote on X. “Something that has not happened with [Kirchner].” Sergio Massa, who served as economy minister under Fernández and chief of staff under Kirchner, said the case was “riddled with irregularities” and asked the Supreme Court to accept the extraordinary appeal filed by Kirchner’s defense.

People gathered outside the headquarters of the Peronist party in Buenos Aires on Tuesday, following similar congregations on Monday. Those attending were a mixture of Peronist organizations, trade unions, and members of the public. “If I have to stay, I’ll stay. If I have to camp here, I’ll camp. I’m going to hold out here, even if I am the last one standing,” Susana Barros told the Herald, her voice drowned by the sound of snare drums. “The government set out to destroy her,” added Barros, who works at a cooperative that cleans Buenos Aires’ most contaminated river.

Senator José Mayans told the press that Kirchner is “not scared.” “She is very calm, she knows what Argentine politics is like. Perón was imprisoned, Lula was too. I think the Argentine people will react to this lie carried out by the Milei administration,” he added. In anticipation of the Supreme Court’s verdict, crowds of people blocked four highways into Buenos Aires City — the Panamericana, Acceso Oeste, the La Plata-Buenos Aires highway, and the Ricchieri. At the time of writing, the blockade continues. Meanwhile, security forces fenced off the Supreme Court building.

Questions over the ruling

The ruling means CFK’s candidacy to be a lawmaker in Buenos Aires province is already over, just over a week after announcing her bid for election. Her supporters have described the case as political persecution. They view the conviction as a means of banning a key opposition leader and the head of Peronism.

Constitutional lawyer Andrés Gil Domínguez called the ruling a “constitutional scandal,” as the Court used Article 280 of the Code of Civil and Commercial Procedure, which allows it to reject recourses without the need for arguments. He added that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights told the Argentine State that the article is “incompatible” with the human right to a well-founded judgment.

Gil Domínguez also said that Kirchner was sentenced without the court irrefutably demonstrating her responsibility. “She was convicted with circumstantial evidence, or indirect evidence of low intensity,” he told the Herald, adding that there is “very little proof” connecting Kirchner to the crime of defrauding the state.

“The existing evidence that links her with this scheme is that she was President and sent budget bills to Congress, which Congress approved, to send public works to Santa Cruz,” he explained. He said that, since the Court upheld the conviction, it is “setting a very low standard regarding the protection of the presumption of innocence, and within that logic, Javier Milei should be called to testify for the $LIBRA case because there is direct evidence there.”

However, he said that the ruling does not mean Argentine courts will start using that standard from now on. “It seems to me that when the accused belong to Peronism, the time of justice is hurried, and the standards are relaxed. When those who have to be accountable before justice are non-Peronist, the cases are closed, the guarantees are extended and much stronger.”

On Saturday, he was shot twice while giving a speech at a campaign event in the Bogota neighborhood of Modelia. On Monday, Colombian Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo stated that the investigation into the attack against Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay is pointing to an organized criminal group. The masterminds of the attack, however, have not yet been identified.

“We are perfectly aware that the young man who was arrested is merely the perpetrator,” she said at a press conference, adding that her “goal is to establish who carried out this criminal act.” Currently, the investigation into the attack against Uribe Turbay is on a large scale, involving at least 180 officials, including investigators from the Attorney General’s Office, intelligence agents, and members of the National Police.

“With all our capabilities, we are conducting a judicious, transparent, and serious investigation,” Attorney General Camargo stated. On Saturday, Uribe Turbay, the presidential pre-candidate for the Uribe-backed Democratic Center party, was shot twice while giving a speech at a campaign event in the Bogota neighborhood of Modelia. The perpetrator of the crime was a 14-year-old boy who was later arrested.

That same day, the 39-year-old politician underwent two surgeries, on his head and a leg, at the Santa Fe Foundation, one of Colombia’s most prestigious medical centers, where he is hovering between life and death. “His condition is extremely serious. Therefore, the prognosis remains reserved,” added Monday’s medical report, signed by Dr. Adolfo Llinás Volpe, medical director of Santa Fe Hospital.

Havana, Jun 10 (Prensa Latina) Anti-Cuban politicians in the United States remain silent in the face of the wave of repression against migrants and journalists in Los Angeles, California, denounced today the island’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.

In protests in #LosAngeles we saw excessive use of force, use of #US National Guard, attacks on journalists, violation of migrants’ rights. But so far we have not seen condemnations of those facts from anti-Cuban politicians. Their hypocrisy is serious and sickening, accused the Chancellor in X.

The protests and their federal response continue to escalate this day with calls for demonstrations in the cities of Atlanta, Burlington and New York under slogans such as ‘ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) out’ and ‘Stop the deportations’.

Thousands of people expressed in the streets their rejection of the immigration policies of Donald Trump’s administration, which the day before ordered the deployment of two thousand additional National Guard members and about 700 Pentagon Marines.

In the midst of the acts of vandalism and the use of force to placate the demands for fair treatment of migrants, the rhetoric of the president is directed against the governor of this western state of the country, Gavin Newsom, and the mayor of the city, Karen Bass, whom he accuses of incompetence.

“It looks very bad (the situation) in L.A. SEND IN THE MILITARY!!!” Trump wrote on his own social network, and threatened to ”deploy military everywhere. We are not going to let this happen to our country. We are not going to let our country be torn apart.”

On his side, Newsom sued the Republican administration for “deploying a state’s National Guard without consulting the governor of that state is illegal and immoral.”