Pablo Schoklender rejects accusations

A day after being released from prison, Pablo Schoklender, one of the former financial trustees of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Foundation who was indicted in the case probing money-laundering and embezzlement of state funds, denied mismanagement of the funds earmarked to build social houses and said the case was built was around “rumours.”

According to the defendant, what Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide stated in his ruling “is completely false,” adding that “no mayor nor governor has filed a complaint or said that money was missing.”

An appeals court released Schoklender from prison on Tuesday after Judge Oyarbide had decided he had to be taken into custody because he could obstruct the course of the investigation. Accountant Alejandro Gotkin was also released while the request filed by the defence of Sergio Schoklender, Pablo’s older brother and main suspect in the case (who claimed to have started a hunger strike), is to be decided today.

Speaking in a radio interview, Pablo Schoklender tried to refute the accusations by arguing that “houses are first built, then a document certifying the work is presented, and finally the money is charged.”

“I want to face the oral trial and have officials, mayors and governors saying whether a brick or a door went missing,” he said.

Schoklender said the case is “crazy” because “nobody has filed a complaint” against him. Nonetheless, Hebe de Bonafini, head of the human rights association, testified last week and said the Schoklender brothers “stole everything.”