An Argentine prosecutor asked for a sentence of eight years imprisonment for the former President Carlos Menem, found guilty in early March by a federal court in Buenos Aires for arms trafficking during his mandate (1989-1999), the Ministry of Justice announced Friday, cited by Agence France-Presse. The prosecutor Marcelo Vera Agüero requested also the impeachment of the current senator and banning him from exercising any public office function for 16 years.
On the other hand, the prosecution argued for a sentence of seven years in prison against Oscar Camilion, former head of the Argentine diplomacy in 1981, during the dictatorship, then defense minister in 1993 and 1996, under the mandate of Carlos Menem.
According to the site Infojus, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice the prosecution asked for an eight years in prison sentence the against former military and arms dealer Paller Diego.
On March 8, Menem, aged 82, and Camilion were found guilty of smuggling weapons and ammunition bound for Ecuador and Croatia. The lawyer for Carlos Menem, Maximiliano Rusconi, announced at the time that he will introduce an appeal against the decision of the court. Carlos Menem denied during the trial any responsibility in the export of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador. Court will reconvene again on Friday and will have five days to announce the sentencing for the defendants.
The former president, a senator for the Peronist party, now in power in Argentina, but opponent of current President Cristina Kirchener, is protected by parliamentary immunity until the end of his term in 2017.
Menem, a controversial politician, is on trial for ordering, between 1991 and 1995, the illegal supply of weapons worth at least 400 million pesos ($99 million at the current exchange rate) for the two countries at war. The weapons had the official destination Panama and Venezuela, but were redirected to Croatia. Argentina therefore violated the UN embargo on arms sales imposed during the conflict that ravaged the former Yugoslavia in the early nineties.
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