On September 23, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela requested the preventive arrest of President Javier Milei, the Secretary General of the Presidency of Argentina, Karina Milei, and Patricia Bullrich, Minister of Security of Argentina, for the crimes of aggravated robbery, simulation of punishable acts, unlawful deprivation of liberty, unlawful interference in the operational security of civil aviation, and disabling of aircraft. The arrest warrant was issued in response to a dispute over a Venezuelan aircraft that was retained in Argentina for over a year.
On June 8, 2022, still during the administration of Alberto Fernández, Argentine authorities retained a Boeing 747-300M. The aircraft belonged to the Emtrasur aviation company. According to the Argentine Foreign Ministry, the reason for the detention, requested by the Buenos Aires judiciary, was that the aircraft was sold by Iran’s Mahan Air to Emtrasur, and that export control laws were violated in the process because the plane did not have the authorization of the US government. In addition, it is alleged that the transaction benefited the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
But the most important part of the accusation was that some of the crew members of the aircraft allegedly had links to terrorist activities. These people were arbitrarily detained by the Argentine State after the seizure of the Emtrasur aircraft. It took some time of diplomatic pressure before the 19 crew members, who could not be found guilty of any crime, were released.
The US Department of Justice stated that the aircraft was possibly used for covert operations in Latin America. Therefore, on May 3, 2023, a US court requested an order to seize the Venezuelan aircraft. However, since February 2024 (just two months after Milei was sworn in as president of Argentina), processes were accelerated so that the plane could be sent to the United States as soon as possible. Finally, the aircraft was delivered to the US on February 11, 2024, and the US announced its seizure on February 12 and its subsequent dismantling in the state of Florida.
For his part, the Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek Williams, informed that there are currently two prosecutors specialized in this type of international crime who are processing the arrest warrants for Milei, his sister Karina, and Bullrich. The Argentine government has emphatically rejected the accusations and has stated that the fate of the Venezuelan plane had nothing to do with its administration, but rather that it was a decision taken by the judiciary. However, Caracas stated that the whole plot of sending the Venezuelan plane to the United States happened with the approval of the Milei siblings and Patricia Bullrich.
For now, it would seem that the airplane problem is just one more step in the increasingly tense relations between both countries. A few weeks ago, the Argentine Foreign Ministry requested the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Nicolás Maduro and other Chavista leaders after the July 28 elections. For its part, the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office announced that in Argentina there could be a “premeditated program of violence” against citizens and human rights, which could constitute a set of crimes against humanity that must be denounced before the judicial authorities. In this sense, the dispute over the Emtrasur airline plane only seems to be one more piece in the war of declarations and diplomatic disputes between both South American countries.
