ARGENTINA: POLICE CHIEFS FIRED FOR CORRUPTION.
Argentina's two main police forces, the federal and the Buenos Aires provincial forces, lost their police chiefs because of corruption scandals. The dismissals were the latest anti-corruption efforts of President Nestor Kirchner, efforts that earlier led to an overhaul of the military leadership, other police firings, and the resignation under pressure of a justice of the Corte Suprema de Justicia (CSJ).
Federal police chief Gen. Roberto Giacomino was removed from his post on Oct. 3. The Justice Ministry reported that an investigation had confirmed that Giacomino had awarded US$700,000 in inflated contracts for computers in the Churruca police hospital to companies with ties to his relatives. Also fired was Raul Pigretti, head of the police welfare department.
The Justice Ministry said the legal affairs office had warned Giacomino about irregularities in the concession of the contracts, but he not only proceeded to authorize them but did so with no public bidding process.
"The company awarded the contract for software (L&M Sist.Serv) belongs to Vicente Capizzi, the brother of Giacomino's brother-in-law," said Justice Minister Gustavo Beliz, "and the company that received the hardware contract (Novel Time) belongs to Santiago Alvarez, uncle of Elizabeth Monica Alvarez, daughter-in-law of the former chief."
Giacomino survived earlier purge
Giacomino, who had been named to the post by former President Aldolfo Rodriguez Saa (Dec. 23-29, 2001) during his one-week presidency, was kept on by President Eduardo Duhalde (2001-2003) and ratified in his job by Kirchner, partly because he had the backing of Buenos Aires mayor Anibal Ibarra.
Giacomino, who was in France for an Interpol meeting when he was given the news, was the only top-ranking federal police official to survive the firings ordered by Kirchner in June, when 11 police commissioners were dismissed as part of a government effort to clamp down on corruption (see NotiSur, 2003-06-06).
That shake-up, carried out shortly after Kirchner took office in late May, also reached the leadership of the armed forces, where several commanders were retired who had been junior officers during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship and dirty war.
Beliz said that the action taken against Giacomino was meant to show the government's willingness to totally root out corruption and criminal activity in the police departments. He said "further changes in the Federal Police" would be forthcoming, and he indicated...
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