POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Cavallo Links Arms Dealer with Yabran

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 27 1998 (IPS) - Domingo Cavallo, the former Argentine economy minister, accused Syrian arms trafficker Monser Al Kassar of being a mafia leader intimately linked to Alfredo Yabran, the ill-fated tycoon who killed himself here last week.

Since the suicide of the controversial Argentine magnate, Alfredo Yabran, on Wednesday 21, Cavallo -who had been insisting the man was a mafia leader with extensive influence over the government and legal system since 1995- has now claimed Al Kassar could be world head of the organisation.

“Al Kassar should be investigated,” said Cavallo, as he could be the leader of a world-wide mafia of which Yabran was only a local representative.

Al Kassar, speaking from his home in Marbella, Spain Wednesday said: “I do not know Mr. Yabran, nor do I know anything of his business.”

Yabran, a fugitive from justice, fleeing from a warrant issued on him for masterminding the murder of photojournalist Jose Luis Cabezas, shot himself in the head on Wednesday 21 in one of his estates in the province of Entre Rios, just as the police arrived to raid the establishment.

The death of the businessman, who, according to Cavallo and other sources, had amassed a fortune of around four billion dollars, caused a deep impact on the public here, which refused to believe what it was hearing. Most people suspect he was either murdered or forced to kill himself.

One of Cavallo’s co-party members, Franco Caviglia, ratified the charges brought by the former economy minister, adding that Al Kassar had stayed on one of Yabran’s estates during a visit to the country, information which had also come into the hands of a reporter on Argentine daily “Clarin.”

Al Kassar has convictions against him in France and Britain, and is barred from entering Germany. Interpol identifies him as an arms and drugs trafficker and the Swiss courts froze a million- dollar deposit he made in a bank here, believing its origin to be suspect.

However, in 1992, Al Kassar -who is of the same origins as Yabran, President Carlos Menem and his former in-laws, the Yoma’s- was granted citizenship and a passport so rapidly that the operation was reported as irregular. The transaction is currently suspended.

Al Kassar has strong links with the Yoma family, particularly with former official in the presidential office, Amira Yoma, former sister-in-law of President Menem tried on drug money laundering charges.

Argentine journalist Rogelio Garcia Lupo, who investigated what he termed as “the Syrian mafia” for Clarin and Spanish weekly “Tiempo,” also stated Yabran accompanied Al Kassar around Argentina on a tour of a dozen military owned munitions and firearms factories in 1990.

According to Garcia, the two businessmen were aiming to take over arms factories funded by another Syrian, the banker Gaith Pharaon who had recently opened a branch of the International Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI), closed in 1991 for money laundering and concealing drug trafficking.

Al Kassar said he will be in Buenos Aires for a face to face meeting with Cavallo in June, when he will ask to see the evidence linking him to the dead man.

One of the letters Yabran left behind him accuses governor of Buenos Aires, Edouardo Duhalde and Cavallo of guiding a campaign against him, and the other letter -for his secretary- suggests HC should suceed him.

Shortly after the event, Cavallo revealed that HC was Hector Collela, a telephone and postal businessman who confirmed he had been both friend and advisor to Yabran. Collela did not deny being mentioned in the letter, confessing the deceased had asked him to help advise his children should he be absent only the day before his death.