A federal judge is seeking to determine if the crew of the plane held in Ezeiza used the flight as a cover to cover up terrorist activities. An Iranian and eleven Venezuelan members of the Emtrasur crew will be able to leave Argentina
Federal Judge Federico Villena, who has been conducting the investigation into the Iranian-Venezuelan plane stranded in Ezeiza for almost two months, defined that will allow the departure of 12 of the plane’s crew members from the country of the Venezuelan company Emtrasur that arrived in Buenos Aires from Mexico loaded with auto parts.
On the other hand, as defined by the judge, the pilot of the plane, the Iranian Gholamreza Ghasemi, will not be able to leave the country for the time being, nor will the other three Iranian crew members of the aircraft. Similarly, three Venezuelan members of the crew must also remain in the country, reported the Argentine media Clarion.
According to a US FBI report, which was transmitted to Paraguay and other countries in the region and is also in the hands of the judge, the pilot Gholamreza Ghasemi is related to Al Quds, the international arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, a body accused of organizing terrorist attacks in different countries, among them, as it appears in the case for the blowing up of the AMIA in 1994 in Argentina.
In the resolution, the judge orders that the passports of the Iranians Gholamreza Ghasemi (plane pilot), Abdolbaset Mohammadi, Mohammad Khosraviaragh and Saeid Vali Zadeh continue to be withheld. and the Venezuelans Víctor Pérez Gómez, Mario Arraga Urdaneta and José García Contreras, all members of the Boeing crew. These seven people will not be able to leave the country until authorized by the magistrate.
Instead, Villena lifted the restriction to travel abroad for Mahdi Mouseli, 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. , Angel Marin Ovalles and Nelson Coello. All of them will be able to leave whenever they wish, despite the fact that the judge clarified: “I must emphasize that this decision is not intended to define the degree of participation in the facts under investigation, since the investigation is not yet complete.” “On the contrary, it has only been evaluated -as it was advanced- if it is reasonable to maintain the measure of prohibition of leaving the country arranged,” Villena said in his brief.
Villena devotes several paragraphs to justifying why he maintains the restrictions on the four Iranians and the three Venezuelan crew members.
The one who generates the most suspicion is the pilot, Gholamreza Ghasemi. When his cell phone and his electronic devices were seized, “screenshots, videos and images were found in which war contexts, weapons, armies, leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, as well as the Quds Armed Forces, Hezbollah, people whose lives would have been taken, photographs of the logo of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, among other elements.
He also had on his phone an image of an “armed army and, at first glance, it would appear that one of the people photographed would be Gholamreza Ghasemi himself.”
It also had photos of Iranian military leaders, among them “Mohsen Rezai, former Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, with an international arrest request issued by the Argentine federal justice, and Hasan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah (both in the Public Registry of Persons and Entities linked to acts of Terrorism and their Financing).
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In turn, Abdolbaset Mohammadi will continue to be held since the FBI report indicates that two other airlines for which he works, Mahan Air and Fars Queshm Air, They provide transportation and logistics services to terrorist organizations, for which they smuggle weapons.
The other two Iranians, Mohammad Khosraviaragh and Saeid Vali Zadeh, will continue to be held because all their communications are in Farsi and official translations of those texts are missing.
The judge also wants to be close to Víctor Manuel Pérez Gómez (General Manager of Operations at Emtrasur and former Venezuelan military officer), because he would be linked to a man related to Hezbollah and because he wants to investigate the financial management of the company; Mario Arraga Urdaneta (Emtrasur Administration Manager and former Venezuelan military officer), for his participation in the financial structuring of the flight, and José Gregorio García Contreras.
In his case, chats were found on his cell phone that could compromise him. The judge says in his brief: «It is appropriate to highlight a series of chats on June 11 of the current year between 3:20 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. (UTC +0), with whom he has scheduled as “Desire Ing” and “Desire 2 ”, which have been obtained from his cell phone in which he has made references to the fact that “…Thank God they didn’t find anything…” and to which his interlocutor replies “…Thank God. I was trembling with that, but I didn’t want to ask because I know they are being watched…”.
«In that same exchange of messages, the named person tells her that they have not written about the “top secret” issue, he specifically referred “…Well, bold, that is what there is until now. Inform Cañizalez but if you can in person. Let’s avoid chat and acdenas. Tell him that we have not written to him because of the top secret issue…”, says the magistrate.
Last Friday, the prosecutor of the case, Cecilia Incardona, opposed the lifting of the ban on leaving the country for the crew of the Boeing 747 investigated for suspected links to terrorist organizations. The request of the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office also extended to the aircraft, which remains in a sector of Ezeiza intended for aircraft parking.
The plane is a cargo Boeing 747 Dreamliner, which belonged to the Iranian company Mahan Air and today is in the hands of Emtrasur, a subsidiary of the Venezuelan Consortium of Aeronautical Industries and Air Services (Conviasa). Both companies were sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury for their alleged logistical collaboration with terrorist organizations.
The plane entered Argentina on June 6 from Mexico, after making a stopover in Venezuela, transferring a shipment of spare parts for an automotive company. Two days later it took off to refuel in Uruguay, but he had to return to Ezeiza because Montevideo did not authorize his landing.
The Argentine oil companies had already refused to sell fuel to the plane in Ezeiza, for fear of US sanctions. Only on June 11, the Argentine government ordered the retention of the plane and prohibited its 19 crew members from leaving the country.
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