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Argentinian president hits out at judiciary over rally for Alberto Nisman
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(about 14 hours later)
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the Argentinian president, accused the judiciary on Saturday of launching a political battle after state lawyers organised a march to demand justice for a dead prosecutor who had been investigating her.
This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason.
The protest, known as 18F, drew tens of thousands into the streets of Buenos Aires on Wednesday, a month after the state prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead in his apartment in mysterious circumstances.
Nisman had accused Fernández of plotting to cover up his inquiry into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires.
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Commenting on the rally for the first time, Fernández said the march marked the politicisation of the judiciary.
“18F, the baptism by fire for the Judicial party,” Fernández wrote sarcastically in a statement shared on social media.
“The true political and institutional significance of the march was the public and now undeniable appearance of the Judicial party,” she said.
The protest, one of the biggest Fernández has faced in her seven years in power, was called by a group of state prosecutors and swiftly promoted by opposition parties.
The prosecutors had previously said the rally was to honour Nisman and was not politically motivated.
The group has frequently locked horns with Argentina’s leftwing government and complained of a culture of intimidation and meddling in the courts.
“It’s really as strange as a march for better government would be if called for by cabinet ministers,” Fernández said.
“18F was decidedly an opposition march, summoned by prosecutors and supported by judges and the whole spectrum of political opposition,” she said.
Officials said in the days leading up to the march that it was designed to destabilise the government.
Protesters said they were demanding an independent judiciary and an end to impunity for high-ranking officials.
Similar rallies were held on the same day in other cities in Argentina as well as in Chile, the US and Israel.
Nisman’s death has sent shockwaves through Argentina before October’s presidential elections, and plunged Fernández’s final year into turmoil.
Nisman had accused Iran of being behind the 1994 bombing and alleged that Fernández conspired with Tehran to whitewash his investigations in return for economic favours.
Iran has repeatedly denied the accusation. Fernández called it “absurd”, and said rogue state security agents who held a grudge against her had misled Nisman’s investigation and then killed him.
