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Venezuela: Businessman to cooperate in cash suitcase case
By Bill Cormier
AP
BUENOS AIRES
Petroleumworld.com 08 16 07
The Venezuelan-American businessman whose cash-filled suitcase set off a scandal that has rattled two governments is willing to cooperate with investigators, his lawyer said in a report published Wednesday.Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson is willing to testify about the nearly $800,000 in cash he brought into Argentina from Venezuela aboard a plane chartered by Argentina's state energy company, his lawyer Hector Vidal Albarracin told the daily La Nacion.
Antonini arrived Aug. 4 with a suitcase filled with cash. He left the undeclared cash with customs officials, who did not try to arrest him, and vanished. Neither Antonini nor anyone else on the plane has said where the money came from or what it was for.
The fact that officials of both countries accompanied Antonini has shaken President Nestor Kirchner's government at a time when his wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is running to replace him as president. It has also prompted investigations in Venezuela, where officials in President Hugo Chavez's government deny any link to Antonini.
On Tuesday, an Argentine prosecutor said she was seeking an arrest warrant for Antonini, though no judge has yet ruled on the request.
"There is no need to take out an arrest warrant," Vidal Albarracin told the newspaper. He said his client was not a fugitive but had left Argentina "because there was no restriction against his doing so."
The lawyer said he was in contact with the businessman in Florida, where the dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizen has an apartment in Key Biscayne.
The lawyer said the businessman has indicated he is ready to testify if called to do so. The lawyer's secretary told The Associated Press on Wednesday he was unavailable for further comment.
Antonini arrived in Buenos Aires on a flight carrying Argentine officials, three employees of Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, and Daniel Uzcategui Spetch, the son of the president of PDVSA's Argentine unit, Diego Uzcategui Matheus.
Venezuelan officials have denied any relation between Antonini and PDVSA.
But Argentina's Clarin newspaper reported Wednesday that Antonini made three earlier trips to Argentina and newspapers carried photos of him in the company of a pro-Chavez governor on a trip to Uruguay.
Also Wednesday, PDVSA Uruguay issued a one-sentence statement denying any link to Antonini after Uruguay's Radio Espectador reported a day earlier that PDVSA had reserved and paid for Antonini's hotel rooms during his recent trips to Uruguay.
Because of "information released recently by different local and regional communications media, PDVSA Uruguay states it does not have and has not had any relationship with Mr. Guido Antonini Wilson," the statement said.
Separately, the Venezuelan Embassy in Montevideo said it would have no comment on the Uruguayan report.
The incident forced one Argentine official to resign for permitting Antonini to ride on the plane.
Venezuela's vice president, Jorge Rodriguez, called heavy media coverage a "conspiracy" and an attempt by opponents to falsely link events to Chavez.
Meanwhile, dozens of Chavez opponents protested in a Caracas plaza, some shouting "Out with the government!" while others held a briefcase filled with stacks of fake dollars.
- Associated Press writers Raul Garces in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Fabiola Sanchez in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.
AP 15 08 07
Copyright© 2007 AP. All rights reserved.
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