By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – An Argentine court has sentenced former President Carlos Menem to seven years in prison for illegally smuggling weapons to Ecuador and Croatia in violation of international embargoes in the 1990s.

Menem, 82, is currently serving as a senator for his home province of La Rioja. He will not be jailed unless his fellow senators vote to remove the immunity he holds as an elected member of Congress. However, it is unclear how the senators would vote on immunity.

The ruling can still be overturned by Argentina’s Supreme Court, and, given Menem’s age, he would likely serve the sentence at home, invoking a right that nearly all prisoners over 70 have in Argentina.

Menem served two terms as Argentina’s president from 1989 to 1999. Prosecutors alleged that Menem authorized the illegal sales of weapons to Ecuador and Croatia between 1991 and 1995. Both Ecuador and Croatia were involved in armed conflicts at the time, and prosecutors stated that the weapons sales violated United Nations and Organization of American States embargoes.

In 2011, Menem told judges at a Buenos Aires court that his actions as president were “limited to signing decrees exporting weapons to Venezuela and Panama.” He had no idea the weapons shipments, which contained tons of rifles and ammunition made in Argentina, would be sent to countries under international embargoes.

Argentina was barred from supplying Ecuador with weapons because it played a peacekeeping role after Ecuador and Peru fought a brief war in 1995. Arms sales to Croatia were internationally banned during the wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995.

The case against him and other government officials began in October 2008. An appellate court found Menem guilty in March of this year, overturning his earlier acquittal at trial in 2011. The appellate court said that much of the evidence had been mistakenly dismissed and that there was no logical way the weapons could have been smuggled without Menem’s direct participation and approval.

The appeals court called his defense “incomprehensible,” given evidence that customs procedures weren’t followed, and found that Menem’s brother-in-law, Emir Yoma, acted as his intermediary with the government authorities and others involved in the scheme.

Menem has also been charged with corruption in other cases, but this case marked his first conviction. The trial judges also sentenced Menem’s former defense minister, Oscar Camilion, to 5 1/2 years in prison.

For more information please see:

CNN – Argentina: Ex-president gets 7 years in prison for arms smuggling – 13 June 2013

Bloomberg – Argentina’s Ex-President Menem Sentenced to 7 Years of Prison – 13 June 2013

Reuters – Argentine ex-President Menem could face 7 years in prison for arms smuggling – 13 June 2013

USA Today – Former Argentine president sentenced to 7 years prison – 13 June 2013