Rafael Resnick Brennerthe lawyer for the Venezuelan and Iranian crew of the plane that is held in Ezeiza, gained ground on the public scene when he left private activity as a specialist in litigation and was appointed by the then head of the AFIP Ricardo Echegaray as the head of his advisers. .
He assumed that role on December 15, 2009 and in a short time he became his star advisor.
It was Resnick Brenner who, shortly after taking over as Echegaray’s chief adviser, carried out the investigation of a file initiated by Olga Ciccone, who was president of the firm Ciccone Calcogràfic. Years later, in 2018, it was sentenced to three years in prison suspended and perpetual disqualification from holding public office for having been a necessary participant in negotiations incompatible with the public function.
He was convicted of approving an illegal and unprecedented payment plan to facilitate the disembarkation of former Vice President Amado Boudou in the Calcografía.
The Iranian plane held in Ezeiza.
That was not the only cause against Resnick Brenner. It is that a few months after being sentenced for the Ciccone case, he was prosecuted for collecting bribes from taxpayers in exchange for improve your situation with the AFIP.
The Federal Chamber of Salta confirmed in September 2019 the prosecution of the former official, who had been arrested in that province in November 2018 and released eight months later.
On that occasion, the cameramen confirmed the accusation against Resnick for the crimes of public administration fraud, bribery and extortionand confirmed an embargo against him for 16 million pesos.
Resnick Brenner began to be investigated for bribery after a complaint from his successor in the AFIP regional directorate in Salta, Guillermo Oro. The justice then ordered several test measures to verify if the former official had committed crimes, and requested some that they had been collected in other files, such as wiretaps.
Rafael Resnick Brenner They arrested the right hand of former AFIP head Ricardo Echegaray
Oro had received the claim from businessman Freddy Rosario Tejerina, who said that in mid-2015 and through another AFIP official in Salta, Nicolás FIli, Resnick Brenner he had asked for 1.5 million pesos to fix the fiscal problems of his firms.
Tejerina agreed to the proposal and paid two installments of 500,000 pesos in August and November 2015. The AFIP then lifted the blockade on her accounts and annulled the warnings that had been issued against her.
Resnick Brenner was once again at the center of the public scene by presenting himself as plaintiff in the case of alleged illegal espionage during the government of Mauricio Macri.
Resnick Brenner together with Jorge Chueco, who was Lázaro Báez’s lawyer, asked the justice system to declare Mariano Macri, the former president’s brother, in that case. They suspected that they were spied on while they were detained in the Ezeiza prison and to request that statement they focused on fragments of the former president’s book.
Resnick Brenner: “Nothing strange was found”
The lawyer, representing the Iranian and Venezuelan crew, asked the federal judge of Lomas de Zamora Federico Villena this Saturday to order the restitution of the suspicious Boeing 747, of Iranian origin, to the Venezuelan company Emtrasur, return the passports and allow the fuel supply so that he can return to Venezuela.
“There is no restriction or interdiction on the aircraft, what’s more, it was inspected several times by the Customs and Airport Security Police without any news,” said the lawyer.
Resnick Brenner filed a habeas corpus before Judge Federico Villena on behalf of the 14 Venezuelans on board (Mario Arraga Urdaneta, Víctor Pérez Gómez, Victoria Valdiviezo Marval, José García Contreras, Cornelio Trujillo Candor, Vicente Raga Tenias, José Ramírez Martínez, Zeus Rojas Velasquez, Jesús Landaeta Oraa, Armando Marcano Estreso, Ricardo Rendon Oropeza, Albert Ginés Pérez, Ángel Marín Ovales and Nelson Coello), and the five Iranians Mohammad Khosraviaragh; Gholamreza Ghasemi; Mahdi Mouseli; Saeid Vali Zadeh; and, Abdulbaset Mohammadi.
Echegaray’s lawyer and former adviser wrote that “as a result of an illegitimate decision by the National State, a cargo plane with a Venezuelan flag has been immobilized on which Iranian and Venezuelan citizens were travelling, whose passports were illegitimately withheld, imposing the condition that they can only leave the country by regular flight”.
“Nothing strange was found, being the same formally released, but operationally it is true that there is a de facto refusal regarding its refueling and leaving the country since neither YPF nor Shell allow it to refuel,” he said. and added that “unusually the passports were withheld from the crew and passengers, under the pretext of defining the status of the aircraft, withholding our passports and giving us a temporary stay in the country.”
In his letter, Resnick Brenner questions that the 19 occupants of the Venezuelan-Iranian plane were imposed that the departure from Argentina can only be done by airliner, “having to leave the Venezuelan registration aircraft YV3531 ‘abandoned’.”