Former Argentinian President Carlos Menem on Trial

Former Argentine President facing arms trafficking trial

Published in: Legalbrief TodayDate: Tue 21 October 2008Category: CriminalIssue No: 2179

Former Argentinian President Carlos Menem goes on trial this week for allegedly orchestrating a scheme to smuggle weapons to Croatia and Ecuador while both countries were involved in wars.

Menem (78), a two-term president (1989-1999), faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted on all charges, according to a report on the IoL site.

The case centres around three decrees Menem signed authorising the shipment of about 6 500 tons of weapons to Panama and Venezuela, the report says. The true final destination, however, was Croatia and Ecuador. Menem publicly acknowledged signing the three decrees, but insists the transaction was legal.

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Details of the weapons shipments surfaced during a judicial investigation and were made public by the prosecutors.

Menem publicly acknowledged signing the three decrees, but insists the transaction was legal because the weapons were being sent to peaceful countries.

• The weapons to Croatia were sent in seven shipments aboard freighters between 1991 and 1995.
• At the time much of the Balkans was under a United Nations arms embargo following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
• The weapons sent to Ecuador arrived aboard three flights in February 1995. At the time Ecuador was engaged in a border war with Peru, and Argentina was banned from selling weapons to either side because it was one of the guarantors of a peace agreement the two nations signed ending an earlier war in 1942.
• Prosecutors estimate that the government lost some 123 million dollars in the illegal transactions, though the amount could be higher because one attorney believes that there were further shipments previously unaccounted for.

Witnesses scheduled to testify in the case include former presidents Raul Alfonsin (1983-1989) and Fernando De la Rua (1999-2001), both from the social-democratic Radical party, court sources said.

Menem enjoys immunity from imprisonment - but not from prosecution - as senator for his birth province of La Rioja.

Any sentence he might incur would not be served until his senate term expires in 2014, unless he resigns or is fired by his peers. Menem earlier spent five months under house arrest in 2001 on charges of masterminding the arms deals, but was set free by a Supreme Court ruling.

The case against Menem was filed again after president Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007) replaced all the High Court members.

Also implicated in the alleged smuggling operation are former defense ministers Oscar Camilion and the late Antonio Erman Gonzalez, late foreign minister Guido Di Tella, former air force chief Juan Paulik and a dozen lesser officials.

Full report on the IoL site