ARGENTINA: Menem on Trial for Weapons Smuggling

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 16 2008 (IPS) - Although he did not show up at court, former Argentina president Carlos Menem began to be tried Thursday in Argentina for his alleged involvement in smuggling arms to Ecuador and Croatia, the biggest corruption scandal during his years in office (1989-1999).

According to his lawyer, Omar Daer, the 77-year-old Menem did not attend the first session because “he is not in any state to stand trial” as he is suffering from “stress, severe anemia, diabetes and allergies.”

Seventeen others, including former cabinet ministers, are also facing charges in the trial.

The judges said that Menem would have to show up when the specific charges against him are read out. If he does not, the judges could travel to his home province, La Rioja in the north.

As a senator for the Justicialista (Peronist) Party, the two-time former president enjoys immunity from arrest, but not from trial. He faces between four and 12 years in prison, if convicted, although the Senate would have to strip him of immunity before he could go to jail.

Menem, who is facing several corruption cases, spent eight months under house arrest in 2001 in connection with the same case, but under charges of illicit association, which were eventually dismissed by the Supreme Court, made up of magistrates that he himself had appointed as president.

The case that has now reached trial involves the illegal sales of 6,500 tons of firearms between 1991 and 1995 by means of a series of decrees signed by Menem and several of his ministers, according to which the weapons were to go to Panama and Venezuela.

However, it was proven that they were in fact shipped to Ecuador and Croatia. At the time, there was a United Nations embargo on arms sales to much of the Balkans, including Croatia, due to the wars that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia.

In addition, Ecuador was involved in a border war with Peru, and Argentina, as one of the peace brokers, was banned from selling weapons to either nation.

The middleman for the illegal weapons sales was retired Argentine army officer Diego Palleros, who was also charged in the trial that began Thursday. The retired lieutenant colonel, who was living as a fugitive from justice for eight years, revealed that the operations were worth a total of 50 million dollars.

The money did not go back into the state coffers, and movements in bank accounts in neighbouring Uruguay were tracked.

Also in the dock are former presidential adviser Emir Yoma – Menem’s ex-brother-in-law – former defence minister Oscar Camilión, former air force chief Daniel Paulik, and Luis Sarlenga, former controller at the state-run Fabricaciones Militares weapons factory.

Other defendants are former employees or civil servants of Fabricaciones Militares, the Defence Ministry, and the customs agency.

Furthermore, 40 other people, including former economy minister Domingo Cavallo, are still under investigation.

Ricardo Monner Sans, the lawyer who filed the original lawsuit in 1995 based on information that he received in a document provided to him by an anonymous source, told IPS he was optimistic over the start of the trial, but skeptical that Menem would ever actually sit in the dock.

“I’m pleased to see that the lawsuit that I brought on my own has actually gone somewhere,” he said.

“Menem is one of the main defendants, charged with smuggling,” said the lawyer. “He and his ministers, who signed the decrees, as well as the military chiefs, could not possibly have been unaware of this big weapons deal, and another question that even arises is what influence did the United States have in the fact that this operation went ahead.”

Monner Sans, a plaintiff in the trial, is also involved in other legal proceedings connected to the arms smuggling case. One is an investigation of a 1996 helicopter crash in Buenos Aires in which 11 people were killed, including two officers who knew about the illegal weapons sales, Juan Carlos Andreoli and Rodolfo Aguilar.

The lawyer also represents Ana Gritti, the widow of one of the seven people killed in a 1995 explosion in a military weapons factory in the city of Río Tercero in the northern province of Córdoba, which occurred just a few months after the original lawsuit triggered the arms smuggling probe.

Menem initially declared that the explosion was an “accident.” But the inquiries prompted by the widow’s insistent defence lawyers proved years later that it was intentional, and that it was linked to the weapons smuggling scandal that had begun to come to light.

The courts in Córdoba, which prosecuted Menem and several of his associates, found that the blast was “intentional.” “The order (to destroy the arsenal) was given by Menem,” apparently to destroy evidence of the smuggling, said Judge Oscar Valentinuzzi.

“The weapons were transferred to the Río Tercero factory to disguise them and pack them up. From there they were taken to the Buenos Aires port and shipped out,” said Monner Sans. “It was necessary to make any traces disappear.”

The explosion killed seven people, injured 300, and destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes in the surrounding neighbourhood.

In a conversation with IPS, Gritti, who is also a lawyer, said she hoped the trial that got underway Thursday would turn out to be the first phase of legal proceedings that would eventually include the Río Tercero incident. “The arms smuggling was one of the most vile acts of corruption during times of democracy in Argentina,” she said.

Gritti, the widow of Holder Dalmasso, said it would have been good if the trial for the weapons factory explosion had taken place within the framework of the prosecution for the arms smuggling case. But she explained that they were different crimes, which made it difficult to merge the two investigations.

But in less than six months, the case should move into the oral phase of the trial, and Menem will once again be summoned to appear in court, she added.