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President Alberto Fernández will personally attend this noon to a conciliation hearing with Patricia Bullrich called by the Justicein a demand that the head of state brought against the head of Pro, after she suggested that the government tried to place a local partner in the purchase of vaccines from Pfizer against coronavirus for collect a “return”.
The hearing is scheduled for 12, at the headquarters of the Civil Court 21, located in Talcahuano 490. It was convened by the judge Luis Saenzreported sources with access to the file.
In an interview with LN+ on May 24, 2021, Bullrich stated: “The [ex]Health Minister Ginés González García said ‘to sign a contract with Pfizer there has to be an intermediary, who is the same as AstraZeneca, Hugo Sigman’. And Pfizer told him ‘it’s not possible: I have to have a way to make the vaccine that is effective in a timely manner, so that production doesn’t stop’”. And he added: “That has only one explanation: that is called, anywhere in the world, wanting to have a return of that vaccine.”
“Are you accusing the former minister of trying to have a return of that vaccine?” Luis Majul asked him. “But I have no doubt. That vaccine is not in Argentina because there is no Argentine to talk to who could give him part of it. That I have not the slightest doubt and also, that is criminal “Bullrich said. Then he said that “the President was not unaware of that.” Later, he ruled that if the VIP vaccination was a crime, the alleged request for “return” to Pfizer was “a hundred times worse” for the deaths caused by Covid-19.
The objective of the President’s demand is for the former Security Minister of the government of Mauricio Macri to retract her accusations, or to pay. If Bullrich does not back down, the lawsuit will move forward, official sources said.
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Last year both parties had staged a preliminary mediation that did not reach any point of agreement, so Fernández, represented by the lawyer Gregorio Dalbon, sued Bullrich for 100 million pesos.
”The defamation in relation to the negotiations with the Pfizer laboratory vaccine enters the judicial stage. President Alberto Fernández will donate all the compensation to the Malbrán Institute, as he has already said, ”Dalbón announced last June through a post on his Twitter account.
The conciliation scheduled for this Tuesday is different from the previous one, since it will be before the judge of the case and, if the defendant does not change his position, the case will be opened to evidence.
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Bullrich’s sayings were denials by the laboratory through a press release and through its representatives in a public hearing held in Congress.
“At no time was there a request for improper payments or the existence of intermediaries,” said the Pfizer manager at the time, Nicolás Vaquerwhen presenting at an informative meeting held in the lower house.
At the time of the lawsuit, the Executive Branch considered that Bullrich’s statements were “facts of institutional gravity”, because they implied sowing suspicion in the then already complicated negotiations to obtain vaccines against the coronavirus, in the midst of a pandemic.
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