Former Argentine leader Menem indicted for graft (Bush #41's friend)

[Judi Lynn]

Former Argentine leader Menem indicted for graft
Posted: 23 December 2009 0844 hrs

BUENOS AIRES : Argentina's Federal Court on Tuesday indicted former president Carlos Menem and several of his cabinet members of graft, court officials said.

Menem, 79, and his influential economy minister at the time Domingo Cavallo, have been charged with overpaying salaries for government employees during Menem's 10-year presidency (1989-1999), the official said.

Also indicted for graft were Menem's former justice minister Raul Granillo Ocampo, former environmental secretary Maria Julia Alsogaray, and seven other former government officials who also have been placed under an assets embargo totalling 171,000 US dollars.

The indictment puts Menem one step closer to trial, although as a sitting senator he has judicial immunity and can only be arrested if he is impeached by the legislature.

Menem's latest legal problems follow a series of earlier cases involving corruption and abuse of power dating from his presidency, in which he sold off state industries on a massive scale.

More:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/1026490/1/.html

~~~~~~~~~
From last year:

Argentina's Menem faces July trial
May 14 2008 at 08:22AM

Buenos Aires - Former two-term president Carlos Menem will go on trial July 8 for allegedly smuggling weapons to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995, a charge that can send him to prison for 12 years, a court official said.

Menem, 77, as senator for his birth province of La Rioja, enjoys immunity from imprisonment but not from prosecution.

Any sentence he might incur would not be served until his senate term expires in 2014, unless he resigns or is fired by his peers.

Judge Rafael Caputo set a trial date of July 8 after completing his hearings on the case, the court official said.

Menem's charges stem from the 1991-1995 sale of 6 500 tons of weapons to Venezuela and Panama that were secretly diverted to Ecuador and Croatia.

Menem signed three decrees allowing the shipments of rifles, cannons, mortars, rockets and munitions.

More:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20080514075909736C868635

[Judi Lynn]

1. Bush Friend Arrested for Illegal Arms Trafficking (Argentina's Carlos Menem)

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

[rabs]

2. Menem is having a really lousy month

His wife filed final divorce papers against him early this month in Buenos Aires. :nopity:

She is Cecilia Bolocco, Chile's Miss Universe in 1987.

They married in 2001 and have one son, six years old, who will stay with her.

[Downwinder]

3. You sure make me want to go back . . . to Chile. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

4. This will be a month to remember for Menem. It's hilarious.

Didn't he divorce his last wife to marry Miss Bolocco?

He was a hideous president who drove his country into the ditch, then made haste to hide from prosecution in the Senate.

Hope they'll just eject him soon so he can start doing time in prison.

Merry Christmas, Senator Menem!