The Venezuelan lawyer Moses Maiónica involved today to President Hugo Chávez in the case of the briefcase, inside which were confiscated 800,000 dollars, according to the U.S. Federal Prosecutor, iban for the election campaign of the current ruler argentina, Cristina Fernandez.
Maiónica, one of the five accused of conspiring and acting as an agent of the Government of Venezuela in the U.S., said that Chavez would have instructed the DISIP, Intelligence Service of that nation, he took the case when the scandal broke out and after officials of the state Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) failed to control it.
"Rangel Sila (director of the DISIP) told me that the president was upset by the situation and requested to resolving the issue, from an operational point of view," Maiónica testified in a court in Miami.
The lawyer, who pleaded guilty in January after an agreement with federal prosecutors, testified today in the afternoon session in the trial of businessman Franklin Duran, the only one of the defendants in the case that says is innocent.
When the federal prosecutor Thomas Mulvihill asked who was referring when he said chairman Maiónica pointed out: "Hugo Chávez."
According to the defendant, the case was initially in the hands of the president of PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez, but what relevaron of "control the situation."
However, still tied where Henry Rangel Silva as required, he added Maiónica.
The briefcase was confiscated by the Venezuelan Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, at an airport in Buenos Aires (Argentina), in August 2007.
Antonini came with money in a plane rented by a state company argentina return to their officials from Caracas along with the Venezuelan PDVSA executives.
The prosecutor Mulvihill said today that there is evidence that the briefcase was destined to the election campaign of the president of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez, and that the money came from the Government of Venezuela.
"The Government of Venezuela was trying to influence the electoral campaign of Argentina," said Mulvihill in the initial presentation of the arguments in the trial that followed in Miami against Franklin Duran for their alleged actions as an undercover agent of the Venezuelan government.
The prosecutor said in statements obtained by the FBI Duran and other defendants in this case clearly told that the briefcase with the money were funds for the campaign Fernandez.
