Court confirms trial of former ANDIS chief Diego Spagnuolo on graft charges

A court on Tuesday ordered Diego Spagnuolo, the former chief of the ANDIS (Agencia Nacional de Discapacidad) national disability agency, to stand trial in a case investigating presumed bribery in medical purchases.

The decision was adopted by the judges Roberto Boico and Eduardo Farah of the Sala II courtroom of the Federal Appeals Court.

Alongside Spagnuolo, 18 other individuals were also sent to trial, accused of forming a presumed illicit association.

Argentina’s Federal Appeals Court further rejected the plea presented by the defence lawyer of one of the defendants, asking that the case be quashed on the grounds of questioning whether the voice messages giving rise to the investigation had been legally obtained.

The trials had been ruled by federal judge Sebastián Casanello last February. The case is now in the hands of federal judge Ariel Lijo, currently in charge of the Juzgado Federal No. 11 courtroom.

According to the hypothesis of the prosecutor Franco Picardi, Spagnuolo supposedly headed a corruption ring requesting bribes in return for steering contracts for the purchases of medicaments and supplies in the direction of certain labs.

The judges pointed out in their ruling that “contracts with overpricing” had been steered with the aim of “obtaining illicit gains.”

They further pointed out that the former ANDIS chief had “intervened in the illicit manoeuvres carried out in the heart of the organisation of which he was in charge.”

The court decision comes after it was announced that an audit had found a discrepancy of 158.717 billion pesos in the internal records of ANDIS and a day after the exit of its chief until then, Alejandro Vilches.

Nadia Beller, the former girlfriend of political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, who assures that she has proof that it was the ex-advisor of President Javier Milei who leaked the voice messages attributed to the former ANDIS chief, testified in the case on Wednesday.

– TIMES/NA