Trial date set for October 6
The removal trial of suspended federal judge Gastón Salmain will begin on October 6, according to information obtained by Agencia Noticias Argentinas. The proceeding will be conducted by the Magistrates' Jury of the Council of the Judiciary, which must decide whether to dismiss him. The same jury has already handled the cases of removed Mar del Plata federal judge Alfredo López and Pablo Díaz Lacava, a member of the Federal Oral Court of La Pampa.[S1]
The jury comprises judges Marcelo Bartumeu Romero and Néstor Barral, senators María Belén Monte de Oca and María Florencia López, deputies Nicolás Mayoraz and Christian Zulli, and lawyer Ana Beatriz Fernández. The prosecutors are Senator Luis Juez, Judge Diego Barroetaveña, and lawyer Jimena De la Torre. Juez and Barroetaveña had requested that a trial date be set.[S1]
Bribery charges and the Attila investigation
Salmain, who heads Federal Court No. 1 in Rosario, has been under indictment since December on charges of failing to fulfill his duties as a public official, aggravated passive bribery, and prevarication. In the case, where he is accused alongside financier Fernando Whpei and judicial lobbyist Santiago Busaniche, he is alleged to have manipulated a court file to benefit a trust by moving $10 million to accounts abroad between September 2023 and April 2024, in exchange for $200,000.[S1]
The investigation, known as Attila, claims he intervened to favor the trust of financier Fernando Whpei and facilitate a transfer of $10 million abroad at a time of currency restrictions. In return, according to the accusation, a $200,000 bribe was agreed. Notary and judicial operator Santiago Busaniche is also involved in the file, identified as an intermediary between the judge and Whpei. Whpei, who testified as a cooperating defendant, provided information that implicated Salmain and described the alleged arrangement to obtain favorable judicial decisions. Salmain argues that Whpei lied in his statement to improve his own legal position.[S2]
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Preventive detention and omitted background
Preventive detention was ordered against Salmain but never took effect because he holds arrest immunity as a judge. The indictment was upheld by the Federal Chamber of Rosario and the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation. The criminal investigation continues in Rosario.[S1][S2]
A separate issue is that when Salmain applied for the competition that led to his appointment as a federal judge, he allegedly failed to disclose that he had been expelled from the judiciary in 2002, where he worked as an employee in the Social Security jurisdiction. That dismissal followed an accusation that he had offered a bribe to manipulate a draw. Salmain said he did not report it because he was not asked and because it was an old matter.[S1][S2]
Suspension and defense strategy
Salmain has been suspended since June, when the plenary headed by Supreme Court President and Council of the Judiciary President Horacio Rosatti voted unanimously that he be tried for misconduct. In his defense strategy, he seeks to shift responsibility to the cooperating witness Whpei. The Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation rejected his attempt to open a case in Comodoro Py and sent the matter to Rosario, as the Public Prosecutor's Office had argued.[S1]
Salmain tried to move to the Buenos Aires courts a complaint against Whpei for alleged false testimony in his statement against him. The filing had been lodged in the Comodoro Py courts, but the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation recently ruled that the investigation must proceed in Rosario, where the main case is being heard. Salmain will be the third magistrate brought before the Jury of Magistrates this year.[S2]
