POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Ex-President Faces Prolonged Trial, Detention

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 4 2001 (IPS) - Argentine justice authorities formally indicted former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) Wednesday as the alleged head of an “illicit association” that engaged in arms trafficking, imposed a three-million-dollar injunction against him and changed the status of his house arrest to “preventive detention.”

In the same decree, federal judge Jorge Urso indicted Martín Balza, former army chief, and Antonio Erman González, former minister of Defence, – both already under preventive detention – as being “organisers” of the illicit association.

Urso set an injunction of one million dollars for Balza and 1.1 million for González.

Former foreign minister Guido Di Tella and former army subcommander Ricardo Gómez Sabaini were indicted as “members” of the arms trafficking ring, each hit with a 500,000-dollar embargo. They were not taken into custody because of their lower level of participation in the alleged crimes.

Urso’s decision means that Menem’s house arrest, which began June 7, will be prolonged several months more while the federal courts process his legal appeal.

The judge said Wednesday he believes “it has been proved” that Menem had the “conductive responsibility” in the illegal sales of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador during his presidency, making indictment inevitable, as public prosecutor Carlos Stornelli had maintained.

Urso further restricted visiting hours for the former president, who is in custody at a mansion of a friend located in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Menem may receive no more than two visitors at a time between 7:00 and 20:00, and each person must register with the authorities beforehand. No more than four people may live at the house.

The order for preventive detention – in other words, continued house arrest – had been expected with a certain amount of resignation by Menem’s legal team and by his political supporters. But his attorneys stressed that they would appeal the ruling and would also petition for a removal of the restrictions on visits.

“Menem is not depressed by this indictment, which was expected because the federal prosecutor had requested it, but he is quite upset by these very strict limitations on his freedoms in the home, which are so offensive to the former president,” stated one of his lawyers, Argentina’s former prosecutor general Oscar Roger.

In addition to the appeals to be filed in federal court, senator Eduardo Menem, the former president’s brother, announced that a complaint would be filed next week with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an independent body of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Menem was indicted as head of an illegal association dedicated to the illegal international sales of weapons and for the falsification of documents. Investigations into this case began in 1995 as the result of a denunciation by a journalist, and then transferred to federal justice authorities by private attorney Ricardo Monner Sanz.

Monner Sanz explained Wednesday that, in indicting Menem, judge Urso is following the instructions of the Federal Chamber, the court that had ordered investigations of the maximum leaders of the crimes in question.

The original accusation involved a transfer of 8,000 FAL rifles and 75 tons of munitions that, according to the decrees signed by Menem and his government ministers, were to go to Venezuela. But the weapons ended up in Ecuador, which was engaged in a border war with Peru at the time.

Argentina had been a guarantor, alongside Brazil, Chile and the United States, of the Ecuador-Peru border treaty in 1942, which made it illegal for Buenos Aires to sell weapons to either of the two parties.

Later, it was discovered that 6,500 tons of weapons had been sent from Argentina to Croatia despite the United Nations-imposed embargo in place during the fighting in the former Yugoslavia, between 1991 and 1995.

In that case, the sale had been authorised by secret decrees – also signed by Menem and his ministers – that indicated Panama as the recipient, though the Central American country did not have an army at the time.

Urso, however, did not indict Menem and his collaborators for the alleged violation of the weapons embargos, but rather for the apparent existence of an illegal association made up of government officials and others that was dedicated to generating profits through the illicit sales of weapons.

The judge believes Menem was aware of all aspects of these illegal operations during his government and that he himself authorised the transactions, even when obstacles arose that complicated the arms trafficking.

In recent year, investigators made little progress. But then, a few months ago, the federal court ordered Urso to investigate the responsible parties “upwards in the hierarchy” and to subpoena them to make statements as suspects.

Immediately thereafter, one of the accused, Luis Sarlenga, former controller of the state-run weapons manufacturer, fingered Emir Yoma, businessman and Menem’s former brother-in-law, as coordinator of the transactions for which he received commissions from the illegal arms sales.

After Yoma’s arrest, Urso called on Menem, Balza, González, Di Tella and others to make their legal declarations.

González was transferred to a regular prison after making his declaration. Balza, meanwhile, is being held in an army prison. Menem, 71, is benefiting from the law that allows house arrest for those over 70, following his refusal to respond to the judge’s questioning. The former president maintains that he is innocent.