Buenos Aires, November 25 (NA) -- The Federal Oral Court 7 held this Tuesday the fourth hearing in the 'Cuadernos' case, where the requirements to elevate the case to trial by Federal Prosecutor Carlos Stornelli were read, and the statements of financier Ernesto Clarens and the deceased former private secretary to the Kirchners, Víctor Fabián Gutiérrez, were highlighted. Gutiérrez, who was murdered in July 2020 at one of his properties in the town of El Calafate, Santa Cruz, recounted that former Public Works Secretary José López and former Transport Secretary Ricardo Jaime 'would go see Néstor (Kirchner) more frequently and carrying suitcases.' Regarding Jaime, it was common to see him with a backpack, he always used a backpack,' he indicated. He also stated that he accompanied the Kirchners on flights to the south, where he noted that Daniel Muñoz, the other former secretary to the ex-presidents, 'on most trips carried suitcases with locks, he was the only one who touched them and placed them in the back of the plane,' which he presumed contained money. Additionally, he referred to alleged spaces in the Kirchners' homes in Río Gallegos and El Calafate where money would be 'stored,' according to what the Argentine News Agency learned. In turn, Clarens provided details on the creation, in 1988, of the financial firm Inverness S.A. and its operation until 2006, when he sold it to alleged representatives of businessman Lázaro Báez. Clarens also referred to his link with the former president of the Argentine Chamber of Construction (CAMARCO), between 2004 and 2012, and president of the board of directors of the construction company ESUCO, Carlos Guillermo Enrique Wagner (82); and the maneuvers and payments to companies that formed the Argentine Chamber of Road Companies, which were investigated in the case known as 'La Camarita.' 'Justifying the bribes as a coercive attitude on my part is absolutely inconsistent with the prior cartelization with the very formation of camarita,' Clarens stated in his statement as a collaborating defendant. Meanwhile, he denied having handled money for the Kirchners or Muñoz; being their financial advisor or in charge of moving funds abroad; or having been an intermediary in the collection of bribes from public works. Lorenzetti on the 'Cuadernos': 'A trial in these terms is inadmissible' The trial will continue next Thursday with the reading of the remaining fragments of the first request and will continue with another procedural piece related to the second stage of the maneuver. The judges of TOF 7, Enrique Méndez Signori, Fernando Canero, and Germán Castelli, and their colleague Néstor Costabel, had decided last week to add a second hearing starting November 25 for Tuesdays, in addition to having submitted a memo where they reiterated the requests, made to the higher courts and the Supreme Court of Justice, for the allocation of more human resources and improvements in the building infrastructure. Last week, the TOF also resolved to remove from the trial and acquit Enrique Menotti Pescarmona (83), president of Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona (IMPSA) SAICyF-, for presenting 'a supervening mental incapacity derived from a progressive neurodegenerative disease,' after the judges granted intervention to specialists from the Forensic Medical Corps (CMF). In addition to former President Cristina Kirchner, those to be tried are former Federal Planning Minister Julio De Vido, former Public Works Secretary José López, former official of that ministry Roberto Baratta, and former Transport Secretaries Ricardo Jaime and Juan Pablo Schiavi. 540 instances of supposed illegal payments by businessmen to access public works contracts will be judged: 65 businessmen and two drivers will be brought to the stand, one of them being the remisero author of the writings in the notebooks, Oscar Centeno, a collaborating defendant in the case processed as a supposed member of a criminal organization.
