MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Miami federal jury begins deliberations of suitcase scandal

A United States federal jury in Miami began deliberations Friday in the trial of a wealthy Venezuelan businessman accused in a conspiracy to hide the source and destination of a suitcase stuffed with 800,000 USD in cash and involving Venezuela and Argentina.

The jury, which got the case after an eight-week trial, is considering whether 41-year-old Franklin Duran and others were acting on their own initiative or as agents of President Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan government when they travelled to the US allegedly to aid in the cover-up. Jurors deliberated a few hours Friday and then quit for the weekend. They are to return Monday. Prosecutor Thomas Mulvihill said the evidence clearly showed that Duran agreed to help Venezuela's intelligence service, (DISIP), conceal the truth about the suitcase full of cash: that it was a secret political donation of oil money from the Chavez government to the campaign of Argentina's new president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. "Both the recipient and the donor would not want that made public" Mulvihill said. Duran and the others, he said, "were ready, willing and able to do this." Duran's business partner, Carlos Kauffmann, testified that DISIP top brass asked them to travel to Miami to persuade a long-time Duran friend and associate to help cover up the scandal. That friend, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, had carried the cash-stuffed bag when it was discovered at an airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after an August 2007 flight from Venezuela. Antonini, a dual US-Venezuelan citizen living near Miami, agreed to cooperate with the FBI and wore a recording device at meetings with Duran and others in South Florida. Testimony indicated that Venezuela's goal was to get Antonini to claim the 800,000 USD was his, and to hire an attorney in Argentina to deal with his legal problems in Buenos Aires. Antonini also was to get 2 million USD in hush money and fake documents to back up his ownership of the money. Kauffmann pleaded guilty to conspiracy earlier this year and is awaiting sentencing, along with Venezuelan attorney Moises Maionica and a Uruguayan man who acted as a driver. A fifth man, described by prosecutors as a DISIP agent, remains at large. According to US law Duran faces up to 15 years behind bars if convicted of conspiracy and acting as an illegal foreign agent. Duran attorney Ed Shohat, who delivered a 4 1/2-hour closing statement over two days, contended that Duran was not a Venezuelan agent but went to Miami to help Antonini and to protect his own lucrative business interests from the scandal's fallout. Shohat said Duran was entrapped by an FBI eager to "jump all over" a case that could embarrass the Chavez government. "It just stinks," Shohat said of the prosecution's case. "Franklin Duran was unquestionably entrapped." Kauffmann, however, said he and Duran wanted to help DISIP to enhance their flow of corrupt business dealings with the Chavez government, which had made both of them millionaires. Duran seems to agree on one FBI tape of a call between him and Kauffmann. "We will do this together, together you and I, Carlos. Together! We are a team!" Duran says on the tape, adding that they will "bask in the honours" bestowed by the Chavez government if they succeeded. Chavez and Mrs. Kirchner have repeatedly denounced the trial as politically motivated, which US officials deny. (AP).-