Argentina issues warrant for ex-president Menem
Argentine judicial authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Carlos Menem – the second in a week against the former president.
Judge Norberto Oyarbide yesterday called for his detention as part of a probe into a Swiss bank account linked to the former leader, a court spokesman said. The warrant was issued after Menem failed to appear in court for questioning.
Last week, another Argentine judge issued a similar warrant after he failed to heed a summons to appear in court in connection with a bribery case.
Menem, whose 1989-99 presidency was marred by accusations of corruption, is under scrutiny in several investigations linked to his time in office.
The warrant is tied to a case by investigators who accuse him of failing to report to local tax officials about a Swiss bank account.
After years of denials, Menem admitted to holding the account after being pressed in a media interview several years ago.
The 73-year-old former leader has said the account is fully legal and was opened in 1986 with cash from a settlement he won after being jailed as a political prisoner of the past military dictatorship.
The account has since been blocked by Swiss officials on the request of Argentine investigators.
Authorities are also investigating a Swiss account held by Menem’s former private secretary, Ramon Hernandez.
Menem spent seven months in 2001 under house arrest as prosecutors investigated allegations that Argentine weapons were illegally shipped to Croatia and to Ecuador in defiance of UN weapon embargoes in the 1990s.
Menem, president at the time of the weapons embargoes, rejected those charges - and others – as politically motivated.
He was freed in November 2001 after the Supreme Court ruled prosecutors did not prove that Menem headed an “illicit association” dealing in weapons.
The former leader moved to Chile recently and lives there with his Chilean wife, Cecilia Bolocco, and their five-month-old son.
He did not have any immediate reaction to the warrant.
