“The ownership of this plane has been transferred and sold to a Venezuelan airline a year ago, and it is not leased to Mahan Air,” said Amir Hosein Zolanvari, the spokesman for the Iranian company, after the arrest of the Boeing 747 plane in Argentina.
Paraguayan authorities indicated this Monday that their intelligence agency together with the United States government informed Argentina and other countries in the region about a suspicious Venezuelan plane with an Iranian crew.
This was announced by the Paraguayan Minister of the Interior, Federico González, who specified that the Venezuelan-flagged aircraft landed in Ciudad del Este (on the triple border between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina) between May 13 and 16, however, Before taking off, they warned that it was a plane from a company sanctioned by the United States for links to terrorism.
During an interview for channel C9N, González maintained that when the aircraft landed in Paraguay this information was not known (in relation to the legal status of the aircraft). “The communication that it is a company (…) That it is sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury, and that the crew members are members of the Quds Forces, the revolutionary forces of Iran, and that the United States has them on a terrorism list ”, reported the newspaper The nation from Argentina.
For this reason, after that incident in May, in Paraguay “the precautions were taken and the other intelligence services in the region were alerted, and as a result of that, Argentina and other countries also took measures.”
The minister also revealed that after that trip in May, the plane twice again requested authorization to fly over the Paraguayan sky and to land in La Asunción, but permission was denied.
It is a Boeing 747 of the Venezuelan airline Emtrasur, it has remained motionless at the Ezeiza international airport, in Argentina, since June 8 after being stranded due to lack of fuel.
The plane had arrived in Buenos Aires on the 6th and was scheduled to go to Montevideo two days later, but Uruguay denied it access to its airspace, so it had to return to the Argentine airport, where it was detained.
*Also read: Case of the Venezuelan plane retained in Ezeiza is in the hands of Argentine courts
According to the crew statement, the 14 Venezuelan crew members and five Iranians who were traveling on board were accommodated in a hotel in the Argentine capital, and the Iranians had their passports withheld, while the justice system investigates a series of alleged irregularities that have raised suspicion.
Last Friday, the return of passports to Venezuelans was authorized, who are free to “get on a plane and leave without any inconvenience,” according to Minister Fernández. In the case of the five Iranian passengers, the situation is different.
This Monday, federal judge Federico Villena ordered that the passports of the five Iranian crew members be kept in custody for an additional 72 hours. According to the local press, the magistrate had previously ordered the fingerprinting of these people.
The Iranians were identified in the warrant as Mohammad Khosraviarag, Gholamreza Ghasemi, Mahdi Mouseli, Saeid Vali Zadeh and Abdolbaset Mohammadi.
Hours after Judge Villena’s decision was made known, federal prosecutor Cecilia Incardona requested that these five Iranians be investigated for possible links to terrorism.
Iran walks away from the plane
“The ownership of this plane has been transferred and sold to a Venezuelan airline a year ago, and it is not leased to Mahan Air,” said Amir Hosein Zolanvari, the spokesman for the Iranian company, after the arrest of the Boeing 747 plane in Argentina.
According to Zolanvari, a year has passed since the sale of this aircraft to the Venezuelan company, and the seizure of this aircraft with the name of Mahan Air, has political purposes, it has nothing to do with the Iranian aviation company.
“The crew of this flight is also in the hands of the Venezuelan airline and has nothing to do with Mahan Air,” emphasized the public relations manager.
Argentine Attorney
The Argentine federal prosecutor, Cecilia Incardona, opened an investigation into the case of the Venezuelan plane, of Iranian origin, which was detained in Buenos Aires for its links with Iranian terrorist organizations.
Incardona considered that there were sufficient elements to open the criminal investigation and more evidence. But she also requested that the summary secret be decreed in the file to prevent data from being leaked.
The prosecutor’s decision comes after Judge Federico Villena ordered the passports of the five Iranians traveling on the plane to be withheld.
With information from the BBC / The nation
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