The Minister of Security of the Nation, Aníbal Fernández, acknowledged this Tuesday that the Paraguayan government warned Argentina about the activities of the Venezuelan-Iranian plane that is being held in Ezeiza, but affirmed that it did so when the aircraft was already in Buenos Aires.
The official told this morning at a press conference that he spoke with the Minister of the Interior of the neighboring country, Federico González, who He “confirmed” the facts.
“We had the information on Monday afternoon and the plane was already in Ezeiza, so it is not that we had information that we did not use on the subject,” the minister said in dialogue with the press.
In this way, the official maintained that the Government learned of the presence of the Boeing 747 with a crew of 14 Venezuelans and 5 Iranians only when the aircraft touched down on Argentine soil.
“When they say that Argentina was informed by the Republic of Paraguay about what was happening a month ago, they say, it’s not true,” Fernández added.
The Venezuelan-Iranian aircraft that generates controversies in the Government. Photo REUTERS/Sebastian Borsero
However, his statements go against what was expressed by the Paraguayan minister, who maintained that the intelligence service of his country transmitted and shared this information with all those in the region and in coordination with the United States authorities.
“We continue to work in coordination with the authorities of security agencies on this plane that is in our region,” Paraguayan Interior Minister González said in an interview with the neighboring country’s C9N channel.
In addition, he maintained: “We received the communication that it is a company, and therefore an aircraft, that is sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury, and that the crew members are members of the Quds Forces, the revolutionary forces of Iran, and that the US has them on a terrorism list,” he explained.
González added that after that incident that took place in May “the precautions were taken and the other intelligence services in the region were alerted, and as a result of that, Argentina and other countries also took measures.”
Aníbal Fernández stated that Judge Villena ordered the fingerprinting of the 19 crew members, 5 Iranians and 14 Venezuelans, to “evaluate with the databases.”
This evaluation aims to determine if Gholamreza Ghasemi Abbas, one of the crew members, is a member of the Iranian intelligence services, called Al-Quds. “For now it is a homonym, which does not give us any other characteristic data other than that of the homonym,” he said.
