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Politics :
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BACKGROUND TO "LA DELGADA LINEA BLANCA" - "THE THIN WHITE LINE" This book was presented to the public in Santiago, Chile,
on 30 November 2000 and it started selling in Argentina on 10
December 2000. It consists of two Part two of the book (pages 179 to 283) refers to Argentina and was written by Juan Gasparini. It summarises the criminal activity of Al Kassar, born in Yabroud, Syria. The parents of Carlos Menem came from the same place. Carlos Menem was the President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. Among other topics, the book mentions the irregular means used between 1986 and 1992 by Al Kassar and five other Arabs from Marbella (some of whom are involved in trafficking of arms and running casinos) to become Argentinean citizens. They succeeded, thanks to a firm of lawyers from Mendoza headed by Nicolas Becerra, who has been Attorney General of the Argentinean Republic since 1997 as well as President of the Inter-American Association of Attorney Generals (which includes those of Spain and Portugal) since 5 December 2000. The six naturalisation procedures have since been annulled and Al Kassar is now under a criminal investigation in the Federal Courts of Buenos Aires. |
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This part of the book reveals that the dossier on Al Kassar disappeared from the files held by the Argentine Republic security organisations in order to avoid any judicial condemnation. This was done with the personal complicity of Carlos Menem, President; Hugo Anzorregui, head of secret services (page 208); José Luis Manzano, Interior Minister (pages 239, 243 and 245) and German Moldes, Secretary of State for Immigration (pages 241, 244 - 246). This investigation also includes evidence concerning the assumed participation of Al Kassar in the two anti-Semitic assaults that took place in Argentina in 1992 and 1994 (pages 207 to 216). The impunity of Al Kassar in Argentina has been guaranteed by the intervention of Becerra as head of the country's prosecutors (pages 240 - 246). A short biography of this lawyer, who became Attorney General and whose public acts have favoured some people who committed grave acts of corruption, appears in chapter 8 (pp.247-266). He is infamous for attending public meetings in favour of the military dictatorship of 1976-83, particularly with the ex-commander in chief of the Navy, Admiral Eduardo Massera, one of the heads of the Junta who took power by means of a coup d'Etat on 24 March 1976. |
Moreover, thanks to Becerra and other friendly lawyers (p.260), the Argentinean banker Raúl Moneta has managed to escape a warrant and to have a favourable judge in the most spectacular bank collapse of the Menem period: US$2 billion dollars disappeared (pp.257 - 262). In the preliminary report of the US Senate on 5 February 2001, Moneta, as owner of the bank Republica, was named as being one of the main people responsible for money laundering from Argentina, in complicity with Citybank of New York, for a total of US$ 4.500 billion dollars. This scandal, on which the American Congress will report on 2 March this year, became known after the book had been published. Among the evidence taken to the Senators by two Argentinean Deputies, Elisa Carrió y Gustavo Gutierrez, are documents referring to three societies cited in the book involved in the money-laundering affair.
In order to avoid disclosing the Senate investigation, the book only mentions (p.216) that "Argentinean legislators are investigating" two off-shore societies with Uruguayan addresses, Daforel et Elthan Trading. These are presided by Yalal Nacrach, nephew of President Menem, suspected of arms trafficking and of involvement in the anti-Semitic attempts in Argentina.
This revelation anticipated what is now happening in Washington.
Another report mentioned a third Uruguayan society, Seabrok (pp.239
and 281), held by Nicolas Martin Becerra, the Attorney General's
son, and José Luis Manzano, the Home Office minister under
Carlos Menem. Seabrok has been accused of secretly bringing US$400
million into Argentina, obtained from illegal commissions during
the Menem decade's privatisation of public enterprises. This was
disguised as an attempt to raise capital for an economic group
that is a leader within the media, led by Manzano and Becerra,
of course.
According to the editor's judicial advisors, no complaint has been lodged against La delgada linea blanca, in spite of several threats published in the Chilean and Argentinean press, attributed to different gangsters and to Becerra himself, who has given up attacking the book by legal means.
