MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cristina Kirchner and Chavez named in Miami trial

The names of Argentina and Venezuela presidents Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Hugo Chavez openly emerged in the first hearings of a trial in Miami involving an international cash scandal last year, followed by illegal foreign agents threatening to silence the alleged couriers in United States.

A prosecution witness told jurors Tuesday on the opening day of the Miami federal trial that the man accused of acting as an illegal foreign agent in the US had been commissioned to conceal the source of 800,000 US dollars in political cash flown into Argentina in a suitcase seized at a Buenos Aires airport August last year. In opening statements, Assistant US Attorney Thomas Mulvihill told a jury that Franklin Duran, a wealthy Venezuelan businessman and other men were involved in a conspiracy. Prosecutors contend they flew to Miami seeking to pressure the man who had carried the suitcase, US-Venezuelan citizen Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, to keep quiet and claim the money was his. Prosecutors allege the money was provided by Venezuela's government owned oil company, PDVSA, for the campaign of Argentina's new president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Venezuelan and Argentine officials deny that accusation. "The money was for the electoral campaign of Cristina Kirchner… and it was Franklin Duran who told Antonini about the destination of the money", said Mulvihill. Venezuelan attorney and businessman Moises Maionica, 36, testified Tuesday that days after the scandal broke he flew to Miami to discuss the crisis with Duran. He added that upon his return to Venezuela, he met with intelligence director General Henry Rangel Silva. Maionica, who has admitted to acting as an unregistered foreign government agent in the US is cooperating with prosecutors. He told the court that the intelligence chief told him PDVSA, had been handling the crisis initially. Speaking at times in nearly inaudible Spanish through a translator, he testified Rangel told him: "At the beginning of the scandal PDVSA took over the handling of it (but) at a certain moment, because there was no solution, General Rangel was designated by the president himself to take over all issues". When asked to clarify whom he was referring to, Maionica said: "Hugo Chavez". Two other men in the case have pleaded guilty, and a fourth man is at large. If convicted of being an unregistered foreign agent, Duran faces 10 years in prison. Ed Shohat, Duran's attorney, disputed the notion Duran was involved in a government plot. He told the jury his client was simply trying to end Argentine media uproar and clear his own good name after his friend and occasional business partner, Antonini Wilson, was stopped in August 2007 after the flight to Buenos Aires from Venezuela. The aircraft had been chartered by Argentina's energy corporation Enarsa and traveled with close aides of then President Nestor Kirchner and PDVSA officials. Both Argentine and Venezuelan presidents Cristina Kirchner and Hugo Chavez have denounced the trial as politically motivated. However US officials deny it. Shohat argued the trial is intended mainly to embarrass Chavez and his allies in Latin America. But US District Judge Joan Lenard refused to let him argue in court that the case is politically motivated. "This is not a case about spying. This is not a case about someone coming into the US and gathering information to harm the US" Shohat said Tuesday. Duran is a shareholder in Venezuela's largest private petrochemical company, Venoco, and Antonini gave Argentine authorities a business card saying he was a consultant for that company and an address belonging to Duran, the court heard. Shohat also told the court that Duran went to his contacts in the Venezuelan government and asked for their help, but was never paid or accepted money from the government for his efforts. "He goes and meets with the director of security at Antonini's request, trying to get help for his friend" Shohat said. Duran wanted Antonini to give power of attorney to a lawyer in Argentina who could represent him in court there so the matter could be resolved, Shohat added. But Antonini had begun cooperating with the FBI. Mulvihill said more than 200 tape conversations with Duran and others would show the men sought to pressure Antonini to cooperate into keeping quiet about the money â€" including one recording of the men calling Antonini from the headquarters of the Venezuelan intelligence offices. Ed Shohat said Antonini wanted to reach an agreement with the government of Venezuela but was demanding false documentation as a cover up plus two million US dollars. "Antonini told Venezuelan officials that if he wasn't paid two million US dollars he'd tell the whole story to the press, and he even addressed a letter to President Chavez" revealed Shohat.