Argentina's ex-leader Carlos Menem back on trial in tax case

[Judi Lynn]

2 September 2013 Last updated at 20:24 ET
Argentina's ex-leader Carlos Menem back on trial in tax case

Former President Carlos Menem has appeared in an Argentine court accused of falsifying his tax returns.

Prosecutors in Buenos Aires say he hid from the tax authorities bank accounts with millions of dollars, as well as two light aircraft, properties, cars and stocks.

He called the charges "unfounded".

Menem, 83, was sentenced in June to seven years in prison for trafficking weapons abroad while he was in office in the 1990s.

But he remains free because, as he is currently a senator, he enjoys parliamentary immunity.

The prosecution maintains that he was dishonest about his tax returns of the year 2000, by failing to report two bank accounts - including one with $6m (£3.9m) - two light aircraft, stocks, car and properties.

More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23939511

[Judi Lynn]

1. Bush Friend Arrested for Illegal Arms Trafficking

Bush Friend Arrested for Illegal Arms Trafficking
by Ana Simo

JUNE 7, 2001. A long-time friend of former U.S. President George H. Bush was arrested today on charges of illegal arms trafficking. If found guilty, he could face a jail term of up to ten years. Only a phone call from the new Bush White House might spare him the indignity, he thinks. But the phones aren't ringing.

The friend in trouble is the former President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, a golfing partner and business benefactor of the elder Bush. He is suspected of having illegally sold 6,500 tons of arms to Croatia and Ecuador between 1991 and 1995, in violation of international arms embargoes. Menem, who was put under house arrest today by a Buenos Aires federal judge, said in his defense last weekend that the U.S. knew all about the arms sales.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher gave Menem the cold shoulder on Monday. He was unaware, he said, of any action by the U.S. government entailing approval or encouragement of Argentinean arms sales to Croatia. Given how profitable the Menem connection has been for the Bushes, one might imagine Boucher was frostily putting interests of state ahead of the Bush family, until you realize that, with a Bush in the White House, they are essentially one and the same.

In 1988, a few months before Menem was elected for his first term, George W. Bush, the then oilman son of a sitting U.S. President, had tried to pressure the administration of outgoing President Raúl Alfonsín to favor Enron, the Houston-based company, over other, more qualified bidders to build a gas pipeline in Argentina. He was unsuccessful, but the Bushes hit it off with the high-rolling, big-spending Menem from the start. One of Menem's first acts as President was to give Enron a $300-million sweetheart deal on the pipeline project.

More:
http://www.thegully.com/essays/argentina/010607bush_menem.html