Venezuelan prosecutor requests new arrest warrants against Argentines for plane theft
Europa Press and AFP
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, October 1, 2024, p. 32
Madrid. The Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, requested the issuance of arrest warrants against 11 Argentine citizens, among whom there are three judges, a prosecutor and a deputy whom he accuses, as he did last week with the Argentine president, Javier Milei. , of the theft of an Emtrasur company plane.
The arrest requests are based on aggravated robbery, money laundering, illegitimate deprivation of liberty, simulation of a punishable act, illicit interference, disabling of aircraft and association to commit a crime.Saab detailed, Venezuelan media reported.
The Argentine deputy Gerardo Milman, the prosecutor Cecilia Incardona and the judges Federico Villenas, Carlos Vallefin and Roberto Lemos Arias are wanted by the Venezuelan authorities, as are the deputies Ricardo López Murphy and Yamil Santoro, the lawyers María Eugenia Talerico and Leonardo Camicher, the prosecutor Diego Iglesias and the commercial aeronautics expert Franco Rinaldi.
These names join the list of senior Argentine officials whose arrest Caracas has requested since last week, headed by Javier Milei. Also included are the Secretary General of the Presidency, Karina Milei, and the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich.
They are accused of heist of an Emtrasur plane, a subsidiary of the state-owned Consorcio Venezolano de Industrias Aeronáuticas y Servicios Aéreos SA (Conviasa), detained in Argentina in June 2022.
The Argentine authorities have not yet officially responded to the announcement, a new step in the diplomatic crisis between both countries that began after the arrival of Javier Milei to the Argentine presidency.
In another matter, the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who is in hiding despite the fact that there is no arrest warrant against her, was awarded the Vaclav Havel prize from the Council of Europe, becoming the first Latin American to obtain that distinction that recognizes actions in defense of human rights.
Her daughter Ana Corina Sosa Machado received the award, on behalf of her mother, from the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Theodoros Rousopoulos, during its plenary session in Strasbourg.
In Madrid, the chancellor of Spain, the socialist José Manuel Albares, accused the Venezuelan government of retain unfairly to two Spanish citizens, José María Basoa Valdovinos and Andrés Martínez Adasme, whom the Bolivarian government identifies as secret agents of the National Intelligence Center and accuses of promoting a destabilization plan in connivance with the United States intelligence services, reported Armando G. Tejeda, correspondent The Day.