The trial for Cause road whose main protagonists are Cristina Kirchner and the Kirchnerist businessman Lazarus Baez continues to throw news a few days after concluding the allegations of the prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola. On Tuesday the 16th, Luciani spoke of a little-known character but who could become one of the missing links in the economic relationship between CFK and Báez: Jose “El Viejo” Sofo.
This man was a lucky valet that he drove a Peugeot Partner truck with patent HRE037 and that he went every day to the offices at Pasaje Carabelas 241, where the offices of Austral Constructions.
The Sofo’s first mention September 21, 2021 arrived at the trial, when Gonzalo Lorente, the doorman of the Carabelas 241 building, testified. In his testimony, he said that among the people he used to see was Sofo.
Sofo was a person who I was in and out all the time running errands from one place to another. He made payments, paperwork, carried documentation from one place to another, boxes and everything else that was needed. According to research, also bought bidding documents on behalf of Austral Construcciones or the construction company Kank y Costilla, and even had to report the loss of some of the company’s documentation. These contributions from the prosecutor were to validate the story of the goalkeeper Lorente and ratify that his statements had been true.
In his story, the Prosecutor Luciani affirmed that “Lorente said that on one occasion received a ticket from ABL that belonged to an apartment of Cristina Fernández, in the Puerto Madero area,” and that “he gave the ticket to José Sofo, who went and paid for it.” To reinforce his allegation, Luciani showed a video cut of that statement and recalled that CFK’s lawyer, Carlos Beraldihad threatened to challenge the witness Lorente for false testimony. Luciani scolded Beraldi by reminding him that everything had been left in a journalistic note that was published in the newspaper Página / 12, because he had done nothing in the file.
Lorente had worked since 2005 in the Carabelas building and remembered that the offices of Invernes, the finance company of Ernest Clarens who was also prosecuted and sent to trial for setting up the financial structures to launder money from Lazarus Baez. Sofo worked from 2003 to 2005 in Invernes and from 2005 to 2016 in Austral Construcciones.
In his statement, the goalkeeper Lorente stated that Sofo had some relationship with Clarens, but he did not remember which one. With the continuation of the investigation, Luciani discovered that Sofo was Clarens’s brother-in-law because he was married to his sister Susana de He, with whom he has two children.
Tracing
In 2013, Sofo was investigated in a case of court No. 9, in charge of Javier López Biscayart, of the Economic Criminal jurisdiction, in which he was ordered to be followed and photographed. One afternoon in January 2014, Sofo was seen going in and out of the Austral offices with boxes and documentation that he was carrying in the Peugeot Partner van, patent HRE037.
That follow-up reached a local of the brand of bags and suitcases Samsonite, at 2600 Paraguay Street, where Sofo is seen talking to a vendor. In the place they sell bags but they also repair them, so it was never clear if he went to buy a new one or to fix a torn one.
The information about the truck was valued by the prosecutor because in the search for papers he found the same vehicle in a very particular registry: it had an entrance to Quinta de Olivos on December 23, 2012, when Cristina Kirchner she was president. “What did she go to Olivos for?” The prosecutor asked himself and added one more piece of information: she was inside the residence for just five minutes.
“Enough time to deliver a package, a parcel, an envelope, whatever, and leave,” concluded Luciani. To conclude his presentation on Sofo, he added more information that appeared on the form: “The close relationship between the former president and Lazaro Baez it is so evident that in the box called ‘dependence’ of the entry form, which refers to the person for whom you enter, the entry is authorized and ‘Lázaro Báez’ is obtained, ”he described, and repeated loudly while waving his right arm: “Lázaro Báez. Sofo went to Olivos on behalf of Lázaro Báez”.
The Cause road is reaching its final stage of the allegations and it is expected that on Monday, August 22, the presentations of prosecutors Luciani and Mola will conclude. Then, each defense attorney will have their time to expose.
Perhaps, one of the exhibitions that will attract the most attention is that of Beraldi, Cristina’s lawyer, who from time to time crosses paths with prosecutor Luciani. The same as Maximiliano Rusconi, who represents the former Minister of Planning, July De Vido.
Until now, the role of “Old” Sofo had never been told in detail and his entrance to the Quinta de Olivos that morning in 2012 was also unknown. The entrance was at 10:15 and the exit at 10:20. And as it was settled, in addition to going on behalf of Lázaro Báez, he went to a sector called “commissary”, an area known as “Olive’s kitchen”, where kitchen and maintenance purchases are managed. A source close to Báez has an explanation for that five-minute visit two days before Christmas: “Sofo could have brought a lamb for the holidays.”
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