ISTANBUL

Argentina’s former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will serve a six-year sentence on corruption charges under house arrest, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The court determined that placing the 72-year-old Kirchner under house arrest was appropriate, citing her age and prominence as a political figure.

It also referenced security concerns, noting Kirchner’s survival of a 2022 assassination attempt, and said that her safety “would become complex in a situation of prison confinement in coexistence with any type of prison population.”

According to the ruling, Kirchner must begin serving her sentence immediately. She will be monitored electronically and remain confined to her apartment in the capital Buenos Aires, where she resides with her daughter and granddaughter.

The court ordered that Kirchner “must remain at the registered address, an obligation that she may not break except in exceptional situations.”

It added that any future visitors to the apartment aside from household staff, medical personnel and other authorized individuals must first receive court approval.

Kirchner was initially sentenced in 2022 to six years in prison and permanently banned from holding public office over corruption. However, she had remained free pending the Supreme Court's review of her appeal.

Former President Carlos Menem died before serving a seven-year prison sentence in the case of illegal arms sales to Ecuador and Croatia and he only served around six months of pretrial detention in 2001.