Argentine Police Seek Tycoon in Slaying

Police conducted a nationwide manhunt Saturday for Alfredo Yabran, one of Argentina’s richest and most powerful men, after a judge ordered his arrest in connection with the slaying last year of a magazine photographer who allegedly angered Yabran by taking his picture.

Culminating a nearly 16-month investigation that brought down high-ranking government officials and whipped up public outrage, police armed with shotguns raided the secretive tycoon’s fortress-like mansion and other properties in the suburbs of Buenos Aires and the provinces in the early morning hours.

But Yabran, 54, eluded the search. His chief bodyguard and others, including police officers and petty criminals, already have been charged in the January 1997 slaying of photographer Jose Luis Cabezas of Noticias magazine.

Advocates for the media have singled out the crime as an example of the dangers facing journalists in Latin America. And Yabran’s sudden fall from magnate to fugitive was applauded by critics who allege that he leads a violent and politically connected criminal enterprise that controls postal and cargo services, airports and private security companies.

“The popular clamor for an end to impunity in Argentina is achieving results, at least in sectors of the justice system, and that for me is very encouraging,” said Domingo Cavallo, a congressman who as economy minister three years ago publicly accused Yabran of being a crime boss.

In response to today’s manhunt, Yabran’s lawyers charged that Gov. Eduardo Duhalde of Buenos Aires province framed their client in order to further his presidential aspirations. Yabran accuses both Duhalde and Cavallo of persecuting him.

“There is no doubt” that politics motivated the judge’s issuance of the arrest warrant Friday, lawyer Pablo Argibay told reporters. Argibay described the prosecution witness responsible for the dramatic breakthrough as a “political hostage.”

That witness is a jailed police officer, Silvia Belawsky, whose husband and fellow officer is the accused triggerman. After months of silence, a sobbing Belawsky testified Friday that her husband had told her Yabran “was behind” the slaying and that the motive was anger about Cabezas’ efforts to photograph and investigate the tycoon. She said her husband then warned her to keep her mouth shut, according to a lawyer who was present during the testimony.

“It was really an emotional scene,” said Oscar Pellicori, the lawyer, who represents Cabezas’ family. “Not only did she break down in tears, it seemed clear that she was absolutely terrified.”

The testimony bolstered the accused triggerman’s reputed admission to court psychologists that he acted under Yabran’s orders. Moreover, numerous phone calls connect Yabran’s security force to the suspects. Yabran admits to meeting with the accused killer weeks before the slaying and is accused of a pattern of hostility against journalists.

Noticias published the first photos of Yabran along with investigative exposes about him. Assailants in several cars abducted Cabezas after a party at a beach resort, handcuffed him, shot him to death and set his car ablaze in a roadside ditch.

The hunt for Yabran is likely to increase the conflict provoked by Duhalde’s struggle to keep alive his planned run for president next year. The governor’s ability to resolve the Cabezas case is seen as vital to his candidacy.

But he has a powerful enemy in Yabran, who has asked the courts to transfer the case to a federal judge and has allies in Argentina’s two main political parties. A justice minister was forced to resign last year when phone records disproved his claim that he did not know the tycoon.