The Venezuelan government celebrated on Friday the arrival in the country of the last five crew members of the Emtrasur aircraft that had been held in Argentina since June 6th.  

Caracas, October 22 (RHC)-- The Venezuelan government celebrated on Friday the arrival in the country of the last five crew members of the Emtrasur aircraft that had been held in Argentina since June 6th.  "We have achieved the freedom of the 19 crew members that had been kidnapped by the Judiciary of Argentina.  It is a victory that we celebrate with great strength because our Government is a socialist one and in this first stage, we are dedicated to the liberation of our human talent," said the Minister of Transportation, Ramón Velásquez, in an interview to teleSUR.

Among the crew members who returned to Caracas are: Gholamreza Ghasemi, Abdolbaset Mohammadi, Saeid Valizadeh, Víctor Manuel Pérez and Mario Arraga Urdaneta, two Venezuelans and three Iranians.

The first 12 crew members who were allowed to leave Argentina arrived in Venezuela last month.  This came after a second instance court in Argentina authorized on September 13th the departure of 12 of the 19 crew members of the plane held since June in that nation.  The other two were released on September 30th and also returned to Venezuela.

The minister recalled that the crew members did not commit any crime and emphasized that they were detained in performing their duties.  The official said the three Iranian crew members would return to their country of origin over the weekend to reunite with their families.  "The Iranian pilots and instructors who arrived in Caracas will be returning to their families in Tehran," he said.   

At the same time, Velásquez said that with the return of the crew members to the country, it was demonstrated that a media campaign was launched against Venezuela in an attempt to affect the integrity of the South American nation.