News Center

Trial begins for Venezuelan in alleged hush-money case
AFP
September 04, 2008

September 2, 2008

MIAMI (AFP) The trial of a Venezuelan accused with four others of seeking to silence a US-Venezuelan national caught entering Argentina with a suitcase full of 800,000 dollars got under way here Tuesday.

Franklin Duran, three other Venezuelans and an Uruguayan living in the United States have been charged with urging US-Venezuelan national Guido Antonini Wilson to cover up the alleged aim of the money.

A US indictment claims the funds, allegedly from the government of Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, were headed for the electoral campaign of Cristina Kirchner, now Argentina's president. Kirchner denies the charges.

Antonini was carrying the cash with him on an August 4, 2007 flight from Caracas to Buenos Aires when Argentine customs officials seized it and briefly arrested him.

Antonini and several officials of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA were on board the Caracas to Buenos Aires charter flight.

Later Antonini met with Duran and his co-defendants in Florida as they allegedly sought to cover up the operation. The charges alleged that behind the effort were the head of Venezuela's intelligence agency and the office of its vice president.

In December, in Miami, Assistant US Attorney Thomas Mulvihill said three of the five people indicted offered Antonini two million dollars to hush up the plot.

A Miami prosecutor has said Duran was recorded saying that the 800,000 dollars was for the Kirchner campaign.

Duran, 41, is a Venezuelan petrochemical executive who lives in Key Biscayne, an affluent island community close to Miami. In the courtroom, he wore short-cropped hair and listened to a translation through an earphone. He appeared relaxed through most of the morning.

Kirchner, sworn in as Argentina's new president on December 10, has dismissed as "garbage" the accusation and attacked Washington over the case.

"Rather than friendly nations, they want subordinate countries," she said, referring to the US government.

The presiding judge, Joan Lenard, expects the trial to take four to five weeks. Jury selection was under way Tuesday.