MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Suitcase scandal moves from Miami back to Buenos Aires

Antonini: “the money was for the presidential campaign of current Pte. Cristina Kirchner”

US-Venezuelan citizen Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson was paid to testify that a cash-stuffed suitcase he smuggled into Argentina from Venezuela was for the successful presidential campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, alleged a top Argentine Cabinet minister.

Antonini was a "hired good-for-nothing who they paid to say whatever, so anything is to be expected" Justice and Security Minister Anibal Fernandez told Buenos Aires-based television station Todo Noticias Tuesday. Antonini carried a suitcase filled with 800,000 USD into Argentina in 2007 and then went to the FBI and agreed to cooperate in the subsequent investigation. He testified the money was for President Cristina Kirchner de Kirchner campaign and was a key witness against his former business partner Franklin Duran, who was found guilty Monday by a US federal jury in Miami of acting as a foreign agent and on conspiracy charges. Cabinet member Fernandez accused the US of "intruding in Argentines' lives" and "besmirching, denouncing Argentina" by connecting the suitcase full of cash to Mrs. Kirchner's presidential campaign. The angry reaction of the Argentine government followed Antonini's statements in Miami saying the money was for Mrs. Kirchner's electoral campaign and announcing he is willing to face Argentine justice. "The case is closed. With the process (of Frankiln Durán's in Miami), it is clear that the suitcase was not mine, that's clear. I only carried it as a gesture of chivalry" underlined Antonini Wilson on Monday at the end of the trial He added that he did not know what was in the suitcase or for whom it was, but that "he learned quickly." "I will face the Argentine Justice; I already hired a lawyer to defend me from the accusations. It bothers me that they keep saying that the suitcase is mine," he said in an interview with CNN news channel, the first time he spoke after Durán's sentence was revealed. "The money was from PDVSA (Venezuelan government owned oil company), the money was for the presidential campaign of current President Cristina Kirchner," Antonini Wilson ratified. He also referred to his Government house visit: "I was very surprised being at the Casa Rosada. I was taken there by Victoria Beresiuk (secretary of former Argentine Federal Planning Ministry official Claudio Uberti). I was very impressed, because I thought there was no security," he recalled. Antonini Wilson said that Uberti told him he "had nothing to worry about," but that afterwards he was not contacted again by the government. He said that he was concerned about his security. The US federal jury's decision was announced amid ongoing investigations in Argentina into other suspicious donations to Mrs. Kirchner's campaign. An October audit by the National Electoral Chamber found irregularities in donations to her campaign and authorities asked Judge Maria Romilda Servini to investigate the alleged fraud, according to leading Buenos Aires daily La Nacion. The newspaper ran a front-page story Monday citing four Argentines and an official with an unnamed Argentine pharmaceutical company that are listed as large-sum campaign donors, but who all deny they ever sent a peso to Mrs. Kirchner.