Venezuelan state cargo airline Emtrasur's Boeing 747 that the US government wants to steal. Photo: AFP.
A few days before the one-year anniversary of the seizure of the Venezuelan Emtrasur cargo plane by the Argentinian judiciary under orders from the US Department of Justice, an Argentinian court confirmed that there is no evidence of terrorist financing of the Venezuelan plane or the Iranian and Venezuelan crew members. The court also announced that there is no reason to keep the plane seized on Argentinian soil. However, the aircraft will remain in Buenos Aires and will not be returned to Venezuela because of US orders.
On Thursday, May 18, the Federal Chamber of La Plata confirmed that there is no evidence against three Iranian and two Venezuelan crew members of the Emtrasur plane who had been linked to international terrorism by US and Israeli authorities. That was allegedly the main reason why they had been detained in Argentina.
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According to a report by the Argentinian daily Página/12, magistrates Carlos Vallefin and Roberto Lemos Arias of the La Plata court corroborated that there was no evidence of terrorist funding of the Venezuelan plane or its crew. The ruling confirmed the crew members’ authorization to leave the country—which they did in October 2022. Moreover, the magistrates ordered that the plane be returned to the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, the parent company of Emtrasur. However, this order cannot be complied with because the US Department of Justice has ordered the seizure of the aircraft for having violated export control laws of the US Treasury Department.
With this manoeuvre, the Argentinian justice system released the plane but added that the US litigation continues, which means that one of the most shameful chapters in Latin American regional politics is yet to end.
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The Argentinian government requested clarification from US federal judge Randolph Moss, who ordered the definitive seizure of the Boeing 747-300 plane on May 4.
According to Página/12, Argentinian President Alberto Fernández will not make any decision about the plane. “He is unlikely to engage in a conflict with Venezuela, nor would he want a clash with Washington,” the report says. Any decision would be postponed until after December, when a new government will take office in Argentina, following elections in October.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/AF
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
