MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Immunity given to witness arms-smuggling scandal

An Argentine court on Wednesday offered immunity to a former army colonel in exchange for his testimony about illegal arms sales to Ecuador and Croatia in the 1990s.

As a result of the decision, Diego Palleros will return from South Africa, to testify before Judge Julio Speroni, the ex-officer's attorney, Isaac Wieder, said Wednesday. The lawyer said his client will testify in February and/or March as to his involvement in the scandal.

According to investigators, members of the Argentine government conspired to send weapons to Croatia between 1991 and 1995, in violation of a U.N. embargo against arms sales to belligerents in the Balkan conflict.

The prosecutors and magistrates conducting the probe say the alleged conspirators also sold arms to Ecuador in 1995, when that country was engaged in an undeclared war with Peru over a border dispute, and despite the fact that Argentina - as one of several nations mediating the dispute - was expressly banned from selling weapons to either party.

In both instances, the perpetrators are said to have falsified documents to disguise the true destination of the arms shipments, claiming that the consignments for Croatia were bound for Panama and those going to Ecuador would be sent to Venezuela.

The case, one of the worst corruption scandals to emerge from Carlos Menem's 1989-1999 administration, and the former president spent six months under house arrest in 2001 before the Supreme Court - dominated by his appointees - quashed an indictment against him.

Diego Palleros denies knowing the arms transaction was illegal and claims he had permits from state-owned arms maker Fabricaciones Militares to sell the products, Wieder said.

After the scandal erupted, the trafficker settled in South Africa, a nation with which Argentina does not have an extradition treaty.