ARGENTINA’S highest court upheld a six-year prison sentence for former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in a ruling on Tuesday that permanently banned her from public office over a corruption conviction.

Ms Fernandez was convicted of directing state contracts to a friend while she was in power.

The Supreme Court ruling left Ms Fernandez subject to arrest and sent her supporters pouring into the streets of Buenos Aires and blocking major highways in protest.

The court asked Argentina’s security ministry to set up a detention centre to hold Ms Fernandez.

Her defence lawyer Carlos Beraldi told C5N, a television station in Buenos Aires, that he had requested Ms Fernandez, aged 72, be allowed to serve her sentence in house arrest given her age.

The ruling bars Ms Fernandez from running in this autumn’s Buenos Aires legislative elections just days after she launched her campaign.

The court said that Ms Fernandez carried out “an extraordinary fraudulent manoeuvre” that harmed the interests of the government and resulted in the embezzlement of roughly $70 million (£52 million).

Ms Fernandez rejected the decision, calling the court justices “puppets” of the far-right government.

“They'’re three puppets answering to those ruling far above them,” she told supporters outside her party’s headquarters.

“It’s the concentrated economic power of Argentina’s government.”