Argentina: Court Hearing Against Ex-President Macri Is Suspended

The court hearing in which Argentine President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) was to be investigated for illegal espionage was suspended on Thursday because he was not still authorized to reveal secrets of the intelligence tasks carried out by his administration.

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The Argentine justice will set the hearing’s new date once Macri meets this requirement. The ex-president is accused of having ordered Argentina’s Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) to spy on the relatives of the 44 victims of the submarine ARA San Juan's 2017 sinking. 

Dolores City Federal Judge Martin Bava had summoned him to testify on Oct. 20. Macri, however, did not appear before the jury since he considered that he had "pre-judged" as a form of political prosecution in the face of the Nov. 14 legislative elections.

The facts, however, show otherwise since the AFI Director Cristina Caamaño presented three external hard drives with non-justify photos and intelligence reports on the submarine crew members’ relatives during the Macri administration.

"Instead of prioritizing the search for potential survivors, Macri focused on carrying out these tasks to know what the relatives’ demands to the State would be,” Caamaño said, stressing that the AFI spent significant technological and logistical resources in the espionage.

For this cause, Bava already prosecuted former AFI Directors Gustavo Arribas and Silvia Majdalani, who had denied the charges against them in an inquest statement in July.

"It is clear that intelligence agents did not execute the illegal actions by self-will but responded to the orders of their superiors, who were subordinate to Macri," Caamaño argued, stressing that the AFI spent significant technological and logistical resources in the espionage.