Bribery Notebooks: The preliminary hearing for the oral trial against Cristina Kirchner and others will be held on September 24.

The Seventh Federal Oral Court (TOF 7) summoned Cristina Kirchner and the other 146 defendants in the Bribery Notebooks case to a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, September 24, at 10:00 a.m. , "with the aim of setting organizational guidelines" for the public trial, which is scheduled to begin in November. It's a fact: the former president will return to the dock this year while serving house arrest for the conviction in the Vialidad case.

The hearing, scheduled for September 24th , is intended to establish the guidelines for the oral trial, in which the main defendant is Cristina Kirchner. She is accused of being the head of a criminal organization dedicated to collecting illegal payments, i.e., bribes.

The date for the preliminary hearing was set after the Court rejected a final maneuver against the case brought by businessman Carlos Wagner seeking to delay the trial.

The ruling signed by the 7th Federal Court of Justice, composed of judges Enrique Méndez Signori, Germán Castell and Fernando Cañero, also clarifies that all parties will be invited to " limit the evidence on which the oral and public trial to be held in these proceedings will be based to that which is essential to produce and avoid repeating the evidence produced to prove undisputed, well-known facts."

With the hearing already set, the judges notified the Attorney General, Fabiana León, of the decision, who will intervene in this trial. In various briefs submitted to the Court, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office had requested a speedy start to the trial. Finally, it will be held this year.

As Comodoro Py stated in response to the TOF 7's decision, "it will no longer be possible to stop it; the trial is a reality and will begin in November," a judicial source told Clarín.

The immediate consequence of the preliminary hearing is the validation of the trial, which will begin on November 6 at 9:30 a.m., with Cristina Kirchner as the main defendant.

In a report signed in 2024 by Prosecutor León, the Bribery Squares were described as the "most extensive investigation into corruption ever conducted in Argentine judicial history, comparable to only a few others worldwide."

According to the federal court, judges from three instances confirmed that during the administrations of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, a corruption scheme operated from the Ministry of Federal Planning to collect illegal funds, which were paid by state contractors linked to various sectors. This accusation was confirmed by the Federal Court of Criminal Cassation last year, paving the way for trial.

While serving her sentence in the Vialidad case, where she was accused of fraudulent administration to the detriment of the State, resulting in damages estimated at $537 million, the former President will once again be sitting in the dock: five years after the late Judge Claudio Bonadio elevated the case to oral and public trial.

From that day forward, hearings will be held every Thursday. Six hundred and thirty witnesses were admitted for oral and public debate in a case involving more than 147 defendants—almost all of them politicians and former Kirchnerist officials and businessmen—involved in the bribery scheme.

The former president is accused of having been the head of a criminal organization and is accused of a series of acts linked to the bribes her government received to guarantee various concessions, businesses, and public works for state contractors.

The kick-off was Oscar Centeno, Roberto Baratta's driver—former minister Julio De Vido's right-hand man—who for years kept detailed records of the transfer of bags of money, allegedly originating from multimillion-dollar bribes paid by construction companies, among others, to the Kirchner administrations from 2003 to 2015.

The system operated with the "indispensable participation" of the businessmen, all of whom were acquitted of the crime of criminal association and will only answer in the oral trial for the bribery charge.

The structure under investigation basically consisted of "a series of 'fixed collection points,' where officials identified with the businessmen met and received cash, primarily in US currency," according to the indictment, which will be read on trial.

With more than 220 bodies and 159 defendants, the case filed with the 7th Federal Court of Justice analyzed the arguments of all parties regarding the suggested additional evidence measures, as well as the statements made by Attorney General Fabiana León.

These evidentiary measures complement those conducted during the preliminary investigation. During that phase, 231 measures were initiated: testimony and confessions from politicians, associates, and the country's most important businessmen; reports from the AFIP (National Institute of Public Administration), ANAC (National Institute of Public Administration), RENAR (National Institute of Public Administration), and other state agencies; security camera records; bank statements; and all types of documents.

The list of defendants summoned at the start of the trial includes former driver and first defendant collaborator in this case, Oscar Centeno, also the financier Ernesto Clarens, Mauricio Macri's cousin -Ángelo Calcaterra-, his former partner Javier Sánchez Caballero, the list also includes Néstor Kirchner's former driver, Rudy Ulloa Igor, the former head of the National Roads Authority already convicted, Nelson Periotti, Carlos Wagner -former head of the Construction Chamber-, among others.

In this case, the federal court heard testimony from 31 collaborating defendants, which served as the starting point for the discovery measures that, according to the motion for trial, support the accusations.

The referral to trial maintains that the notebooks case involved "the main criminal organization" of recent decades, dedicated to the "collection of illegal funds" that were, in some cases, used "for money laundering operations in the country and abroad."

In the opinion of the investigating judge, the main accusation became the backbone of six additional files, which sought to analyze area by area where the Ministry of Planning awarded contracts and concessions.

Thus, cases were opened for bribes in the importation of liquefied gas, the granting of tolls, the granting of subsidies to bus and train companies, cartelization of public works, and money laundering operations abroad attributed to Kirchner's former private secretary, Daniel Muñoz.

All of these investigations are related to the main file of the case, in which the vice president is being prosecuted as the head of the illicit association that collected bribes. This charge was repeated in the subsequent proceedings, but the Buenos Aires Federal Court reduced the charges against Cristina by half because it found no direct connection.