Anibal Fernandez and Jorge Capitanic together in Chaco, in 2023/X
The Federal Oral Court 1 yesterday acquitted former Chiefs of Staff Anibal Fernández and Jorge Cabetanich, along with 12 other defendants, at trial for alleged irregularities in the “Fútbol para Todos” programme, by unanimously declaring null and void the accusations of Prosecutor Miguel Ángel Osorio.
Judges Ricardo Basilico, José Michelini and Adrian Grünberg concluded that “there was no valid accusation on the part of the prosecution” due to the lack of basis and the absence of a proper evaluation of the evidence. According to the ruling, these shortcomings made it impossible for the court to analyze the criminal responsibility of each accused.
They also pointed out that there was “arbitrariness” in the evaluation of the evidence, and that this was manifested “not only in the absence of a critical and reasoned analysis of the elements included in the discussion,” but also “in the failure to provide the minimum argumentative thread that would allow the accusatory thesis to be understood.”
The flaws in the argument were so great that the judges understood the prosecutor’s accusation to be “legally non-existent.”
The decision benefits all the defendants, including the former president of the Argentine Football Association, Luis Segura, and the former directors of the entity and Futbolistas Argentinos Grimados. The Public Prosecutor’s Office had requested prison sentences of up to three years for six of them, including Fernandez, Capitanich and Segura.
The case concerns the investigation into alleged fraudulent management linked to the management of state funds allocated to the program between 2009 and 2015, during the agreement between the Argentine Football Association, then headed by Julio Grondona, and the national state for the television broadcast of the First Division championship.
Tax charge
The defendants were brought to trial for the crime of aggravated fraudulent administration at the expense of the public administration – Segura and Fernández as authors and the rest as necessary participants – with the exception of Kapetanić, charged with the crime of violating the duties of a public official as author.
However, at the end of the trial that began in June last year, prosecutor Osorio blew up the case and left it almost empty.
He requested that Fernandez be sentenced to 3 years suspended imprisonment and 8 months, in both cases with conditional compliance. He blamed Kapetanić for violating his duties.
Prosecutor Garmendia Urueta is from the Prosecutor’s Office of Administrative Investigations (PIA).
For the former president of the Asian Football Confederation, Luis Segura, they asked for a two-year ban; One year of conditional death sentence, as necessary accomplices in the same crime, for Carlos Pandolfi – president of the “El Futbolista” Foundation and former treasurer of the Futbolistas Argentinos Agremiados (FAA) – and Norberto Monteleone – former director of the “El Futbolista” Foundation and member of the same foundation.
As for the rest of the defendants, including former deputy governor Gabriel Marioto, the public prosecutor requested their acquittal.
The judges understood this claim to be untrue because with the evidence presented at trial, the charges could not have been so light, let alone the pleas for acquittal.
The reasons for the court’s oral decision will be known on March 11
He was acquitted
Those who were acquitted were former chiefs of staff, Anibal Fernandez and Jorge Milton Capitanich; former program coordinator Gabriel Marioto; Former AFC Directors Luis Segura (former President), Miguel Ángel Silva (former Secretary General) and Rubén Manuel Raposo (former CFO); Former Directors of Futbolistas Argentinos Agremiados Carlos Alberto Pandolfi (former Treasurer), Raul Pagano (former CFO), Sergio Raul Marchi (former Secretary General), Norberto Francisco Monteleone (former General Manager); former president of Iveco, Nathalie Antonio Rigano; and the directors of the credit institutions Cooperativa de Vivienda Crédito y Consumo Amigal Limitada and Grupo Climafin, Eduardo Fortunato Amirante, Jorge Antonio Galitis and Carlos Daniel Davola. They both died. The former director of the Argentine Football Association, José Lemi, is now deceased.