Judge Eduardo Freiler was removed from office on Friday morning after Argentina’s Magistrates Council found him guilty of malfeasance.
Freiler was the judge for Buenos Aires City’s Court 1 and is the first judge to be removed from office since the change of government from Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to Mauricio Macri in 2015. He was considered an ally of Fernández de Kirchner. Other so-called Kirchnerite judges, like Norberto Oyarbide and José Charlin, were forced to quit.
The jury voted against Freiler 5-1. Only Diana Conti, a staunch Kirchnerite, voting against the move to dismiss Freiler.
Corruption allegations
Separately, Freiler faces corruption allegations, which include the controversial purchase of a small mansion in front of the presidential residence in Olivos. He is accused of using a fake mortgage to pay off almost half the US$ 2.8 million he paid for a property valued, commercially, at just over US $1 million.
Freiler will be remembered for having rejected the late Alberto Nisman’s criminal suit against local and Iranian agents whom he accused of involvement in the AMIA bombing cover-up; and for the removal of judge Claudio Bonadio from the Hotesur case, which sees surviving members of the Kirchner family accused of money laundering.
-TIMES
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