The former Federal Planning Minister of Argentina during the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández, Julio de Vido, was sentenced this Monday to five years in prison for the crimes of passive bribery (taking bribes) and fraudulent administration against the State in the trial for the Skanska case, which is the first major corruption case that erupted during Kirchnerism, involving bribes in the process of expanding a gas pipeline.
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The same sentence was imposed by Federal Oral Court 4 of Comodoro Py on the former Public Works Secretary José López and the former general manager of Nación Fideicomisos S.A. Néstor Ulloa for the crimes of passive bribery and fraudulent administration. As requested by federal prosecutor Abel Córdoba, all received a lifetime ban from holding public office, detailed the newspaper Clarín.
De Vido already carries four convictions, of which only one is final, that of the Once tragedy, for which he serves house arrest in a villa in a gated community in Zárate.
The Skanska case was the first major corruption scandal of Kirchnerism. The company obtained in 2004 the contract for the expansion of the construction of the northern (TGN) and southern (TGS) gas pipelines for the transportation of natural gas. A criminal complaint was filed for possible acts of corruption and the case had a key piece of evidence.
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The company trustee Claudio Corizzo recorded a conversation he had with Javier Azcárate, then commercial general of Skanska. In that talk, Azcárate admitted that bribes had been paid for the works and that false invoices were used to justify those funds. The conversation was found on a company computer during a raid.
“He not only had formal rank, but he had a decisive position coordinating all the contributions, so we maintain that at all times he had the final control of the entire action plan,” prosecutor Córdoba stated in his arguments about De Vido’s role in the scheme.
