EFE News Service: An Argentine prosecutor requested the international capture of Daniel Uzcategui, the former vice president of Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA, and his son Diego, in connection with an alleged attempt to provide cash last summer to the campaign of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Argentine media reported.
Prosecutor Maria Luz Rivas Diez made the request to Judge Daniel Petrone, who is in charge of the investigation of the case of the briefcase containing $800,000 in cash seized in Argentina in August 2007. She requested the Uzcateguis' capture after neither Venezuelan last Wednesday, for the fourth consecutive time, attended a hearing before Judge Petrone.
Daniel Uzcategui and his son are suspected of complicity with Venezuelan-U.S. businessman Guido Antonini Wilson, from whom on Aug. 4 the $800,000 was confiscated after he tried to smuggle it into Argentina, an incident that unleashed the scandal and a diplomatic dispute between Argentina and the United States.
Antonini Wilson and Diego Uzcategui were passengers on board a jet hired by Energia Argentina, or Enarsa, that arrived in Buenos Aires from Caracas carrying government officials from the state-run Argentine firm and PDVSA.
Also under investigation in the case is Claudio Uberti, the former Argentine director of an entity controlling highway concession, who said that he had allowed Antonini Wilson to travel on that flight at the request of the former chief of the Venezuelan energy firm.
The Argentine judiciary accuses Antonini Wilson of "money laundering," for which it asked for his extradition from the U.S., where he lives and is cooperating in a parallel judicial investigation. The so-called "briefcase case" caused a scandal in late 2007, when in the investigation of alleged spying by Venezuela a Miami prosecutor released tapes of several people accused in the case confirming that the money was intended for the election campaign of the current Argentine president.
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