Former Argentine President Mauricio Macri is facing criminal charges in connection with the espionage case against the families of the crew of the San Juan, the submarine that sank in 2017, resulting in the loss of 44 sailors, a case he claims is part of “Political persecution” against him.
Mr Macri, 62, who remains the leader of Argentina’s center-right opposition, has been charged with “illegal intelligence gathering”; he was released on bail of 100 million pesos (almost 875,000 euros), Judge Martin Bava said.
The head of state from 2015 to 2019 is being prosecuted for “making possible illegal actions of gathering information, creating the conditions for the collection, storage and utilization of data” of citizens who had been turned into targets, according to the indictment prepared by the judge , which spans 174 pages.
Mr. Makri denies from the beginning and always that he ordered any espionage. From Santiago, the capital of Chile, where he was yesterday Wednesday – he was received by the conservative president Sebastian Pinera – he complained once again that there is a “political persecution”.
“This is a political persecution that would end in this, we all knew that,” he told the Chilean press, where he had been appointed executive chairman of the FIFA Foundation, after which he is expected to return home as banned. now the exit from the territory.
Mr Macri appeared in early November following a summons from Judge Bava – he has asked in vain for the judge to be excluded from the case – in the pre-trial espionage case following the shipwreck that rocked Argentina.
His lawyers, stigmatizing the “hostility” of the judge and his insistence, according to them, to prosecute Mr. Makri, have hinted that they will probably appeal the indictment.
The submarine San Juan disappeared in November 2017 in the South Atlantic, 400 kilometers off the coast of Patagonia. It was only a year later, at a depth of 900 meters; it was never retrieved, contrary to the wishes of the families. According to the Navy, the ship, which entered service in 1983, suffered a break due to internal pressure due to technical failures.
Several families of San Juan crew members campaigned intensively during the tragedy, claiming to know the fate of the submarine. They complain that they became targets for surveillance, telephone interceptions, intimidation.
“A recipient: Mauricio Macri”
“The content of the information gathered, the intent expressed and the systematic nature of the documents analyzed in this dossier allow us to say with certainty that this illegal espionage had one recipient: Mauricio Macri,” Judge Bava wrote.
Luis Taliapietra, the father of a member of the San Juan crew, described the accusation as “an important step, after four years of exhausting struggle”, adding that “there is still a long way to go”.
“They have been lying to us since day one about what happened to our children,” Mr. Taliapietra said. “They demonized us, criticized us, did everything, going so far as to spy on us (…) to infiltrate us, to film us, to photograph us, to watch us”, they applied “the worst repression practices, beyond physical violence “.
As part of the same investigation, two former heads of the intelligence services, Gustavo Arivas and Sylvia Magdalani, have been prosecuted. In all, eleven former members of the federal intelligence service are facing prosecution.
Penalties for violating intelligence law can be up to ten years in prison.
Senior Navy officers, including the admiral who commanded the Argentine fleet, were sentenced to several days in detention by military justice in March as part of a disciplinary investigation by the armed forces, separate from the criminal investigation.
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