Argentine ex-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner allowed to serve corruption sentence at home

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A federal court on Tuesday granted a request by former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to serve a six-year prison sentence for corruption at her home in Buenos Aires.

Judges ruled that Fernández, 72, can serve time in the apartment where she lives with her daughter and granddaughter, citing her age and security reasons. Fernández was the victim of an attempted assassination three years ago.

In the ruling, the court said Fernández “must remain at the registered address, an obligation that she may not break except in exceptional situations.”

The court also ordered that Fernández be placed under the watch of an electronic surveillance device to monitor her movements.

Last week, Argentina’s highest court upheld Fernández’s sentence in a ruling that permanently banned her from public office over the corruption conviction that found she had directed state contracts to a friend while she was the first lady and president.

The ruling sent her supporters pouring into the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, and blocking major highways in protest.

The ruling also barred Fernández — Argentina’s charismatic yet deeply divisive ex-leader — from running in this fall’s Buenos Aires legislative election just days after she launched her campaign.

On Tuesday, the court dismissed prosecutors’ request that Fernández serve time behind bars. Judges said that the physical integrity of the political leader “would become complex in a situation of prison confinement in coexistence with any type of prison population.”

Seeking to serve the sentence at home, the former president had argued that she is more than 70 years old — an extenuating circumstance taken into account by the justice system to grant the privilege.

Fernández dominated Argentine politics for two decades and forged the country’s main left-wing populist movement — known as Kirchnerism — after her and her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner. She rejects the charges as politically motivated.

During Fernández’s eight years in office from 2007 to 2015, Argentina expanded cash payments to the poor and pioneered major social assistance programs. Her governments funded unbridled state spending by printing money, bringing Argentina notoriety for major budget deficits and sky-high inflation.

Critics blamed Argentina’s years of economic volatility on Fernández’s policies, and outrage over successive economic crises and the country’s bloated bureaucracy helped vault radical libertarian President Javier Milei to the presidency in late 2023.

Fernández was embroiled in multiple corruption scandals during her tenure. She was convicted in 2022 of corruption in a case that centered on 51 public contracts for public works awarded to companies linked to Lázaro Báez, a convicted construction magnate and friend of the presidential couple, at prices 20% above the standard rate in a project that cost the state tens of millions of dollars.

Fernández has questioned the impartiality of the judges. She claimed that her defense didn’t have access to much of the evidence and that it was gathered without regard to legal deadlines.

Fernández faces a series of other upcoming trials on corruption charges.