Vice president Amado Boudou (photo: Paula Ribas/Télam/ef)
A judge has announced that vice-president Amado Boudou will stand trial for allegedly using fake and forged documents to register a car in his name. He is the first vice president to ever face an oral tribunal in Argentina’s history.
Judge Claudio Bonadio said he had elevated the case to public trial at a federal criminal court in Buenos Aires after another federal court earlier in the day rejected a defence request to dismiss the charges.
If found guilty, Boudou could face up to six years in prison.
The allegations surfaced last year when irregularities were found in the registration of a red Honda Civic del Sol that Boudou bought in 1992, a time when he was working at a sanitation services company.
Boudou changed the motor in 1995 but never filed to amend the registration, and he didn’t transfer the car to his name until 2002, when he was then working in public office. When he registered the car in his name, he is alleged to have used a fake address and forged the proof of residence.
Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich said that the ruling marks a new strategy of “harassment against government officials”.
“There is no doubt that there is a principle of action and reaction on behalf of the judge,” he said. “We have observed a strategy of judicial and media nature of harrasment against government officials, from cases that are made up to other things that completely lack grounds.”
Boudou is also being investigated for bribery and influence peddling. He was indicted earlier this year for helping a friend’s company emerge from bankruptcy and restructure its tax debts, and then go on to win government contracts for money printing.
Judge Bonadio is also investigating alleged irregularities in one of President Cristina Fernández de Kircher’s businesses.
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