Ex-president Kirchner's appeal denied in Argentina

Former Argentine president Cristina Kirchner lost a legal appeal Thursday against corruption charges, with a high court saying the prosecution's case against her can go ahead.

The federal appeals court upheld a previous ruling that Kirchner, 64, answer charges of criminal association and fraud that stem from her 2007-2015 time in office, according to the Judicial Information Center. A freeze on $565 million of her assets was also confirmed.

Kirchner, however, enjoys parliamentary immunity from jail if convicted, having become a senator-elect in polls held last month.

She has repeatedly slammed the charges against her as politically motivated.

One of the principal accusations is that she handed over hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of public works contracts to a real estate developer, Lazaro Baez, close to her and her late husband Nestor Kirchner, who preceded her as president.

Baez, detained since April 2016 on other charges, is to be prosecuted alongside her. Kirchner denies she was a friend or business partner of Baez.

Her former planning minister, Julio de Video, was arrested two weeks ago after Congress stripped him of his parliamentary immunity. A former deputy public works minister, Jose Lopez, is also facing charges after being caught by police trying to hide $9 million in cash in a Buenos Aires convent earlier this year.

On top of the corruption charges, Kirchner is under criminal investigation for suspected treason for allegedly covering up Iranian involvement in a 1994 bombing at a Buenos Aires Jewish center that left 85 people dead.

The federal prosecutor who had been handling that case, Alberto Nisman, was found dead with a bullet wound to his head in 2015, just hours before he was to testify to Congress on the matter.