BUENOS AIRES, October 1 (RIA Novosti) — Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has sharply criticized the US Judge Thomas Griesa, saying he wants to "destroy" the country's sovereignty and the process of debt restructuring.
Earlier On Monday, Griesa ruled that Argentina is in contempt of court for its attempts to avoid his orders to pay off hedge funds that sued the country for full payment on their bonds.
Most of Argentina"s creditors have agreed to a debt restructuring. According to the agreements, Argentina will repay them 70 percent of the face value of their bonds.
Two US hedge funds — Aurelius Capital management and NML Capital- have refused to accept the deal.
"They want to bring restructuring down," Kirchner said, adding that Griesa wants "to destroy the sovereignty" of Argentina.
Earlier this year, Griesa froze Argentina's ability to transfer funds to restructured bondholders, as long as it does not pay the holdouts in the restructuring, mainly the $1.3 billion in bonds held by Aurelius Capital management and NML Capital.
The ruling forced Argentina into its second default in 13 years and the country passed domestic legislation aimed at transferring its bond contracts away from US jurisdiction to Argentine jurisdiction.
Argentina has also announced its plan to fire the official trustee for most of its debt payments, Bank of New York Mellon, which Griesa had ordered not to transfer any funds to the country's creditors.
