Man Aboard Plane Grounded in Argentina Linked to Iran's Quds Force, Says Paraguay

A plane transporting automotive components, 14 Venezuelan crew members and five Iranians, is being held at the Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires Sebastian BORSERO AFP/File
A plane transporting automotive components, 14 Venezuelan crew members and five Iranians, is being held at the Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires Sebastian BORSERO AFP/File
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Man Aboard Plane Grounded in Argentina Linked to Iran's Quds Force, Says Paraguay

A plane transporting automotive components, 14 Venezuelan crew members and five Iranians, is being held at the Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires Sebastian BORSERO AFP/File
A plane transporting automotive components, 14 Venezuelan crew members and five Iranians, is being held at the Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires Sebastian BORSERO AFP/File

One of the men aboard a plane grounded near Buenos Aires has ties to Iran's Quds Force, Paraguay's intelligence chief said Friday, despite claims by Argentina that no evidence links the case to Tehran's overseas intelligence.

Intelligence chief Esteban Aquino told AFP that Captain Gholamreza Ghasemi did not merely share a name with a member of the Force -- an arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States -- but is in fact the same man.

Argentine Minister of Security Anibal Fernandez responded Friday that while the Paraguayan official "has his right to say whatever he wants... I'm not going to talk about conjecture."

"We abide by due process. And according to the official documentation, there is no specific relationship with terrorist organizations, according to all the databases," Fernandez told AM750 radio.

The Boeing 747 cargo plane, reportedly carrying car parts, has been held at an Argentine airport since Wednesday last week, with its 14 Venezuelan and five Iranian crew members prevented from leaving the country pending an investigation.

On Monday, Argentine officials raised suspicions of a link between the flight and the Revolutionary Guards.

The plane arrived in Argentina from Mexico on June 6, before trying to fly to Uruguay two days later, where it was refused entry.

Uruguay's Interior Minister Luis Alberto Heber said Tuesday the country had been responding to a "formal warning from Paraguayan intelligence."

It then returned to Argentina where it has been grounded ever since.

The plane belongs to Emtrasur, a subsidiary of Venezuela's Conviasa, which is under US sanctions.

Paraguay on Tuesday said it had information that seven crew on the plane, which stopped in the country in May, were Quds Force members.

Iran has said the plane was sold to a Venezuelan company by Tehran's Mahan Air last year.

The United States has accused Mahan Air of links to the Revolutionary Guards.



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
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ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.