MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

12 crewmembers of Emtrasur's 747 free to leave Argentina

Captain Ghasemi's fate will be decided within 10 days

Argentine Federal Judge Federico Vuillena Thursday gave their passports back to 12 crew members of the Venezuelan-Iranian freighter seized at the Ezeiza International Airport.

They all announced they would leave the country while the investigation into the alleged real reasons behind the cargo flight with an aircraft blacklisted by the United States for its alleged involvement in Iran-sponsored global terrorism continues.

The Federal Court of Appeals in La Plata also ordered Villena to decide on the fate of the other 7 crewmembers within the next 10 days.

Victoria Valdiviezo Marval, Cornelio Trujillo Candor, Vicente Raga Tenias, José Ramírez Martínez, Zeus Rojas Velásquez, Jesús Landaeta Oraa, Armando Marcano Estreso, Ricardo Rendon Oropeza, Albert Gines Pérez, Ángel Marin Ovalles, Nelson Coello, and Mahdi Mouseli may now leave Argentina, while Gholamreza Ghasemi, Abdolbaset Mohammadi, Víctor Pérez Gómez, Mario Arraga Urdaneta, José García Contreras, Mohammad Khosraviaragh and Saeid Vali Zadeh are still banned from leaving the country, pending Villena's ruling.

Also submitting evidence to the procedure handled by Villena were the United States, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

The Boeing 747-300's captain Ghasemi would be, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States of America (FBI), linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force (IRGCQF) and Hezbollah, both known to have been involved in acts of terror.