Argentina's ex-President Mr Carlos Menem has been placed under house arrest by a court investigating illegal arms sales to Croatia and Ecuador during his government in the early 1990s.
"It's a sad day for Argentine democracy and the legal system," said Mr Menem's brother Eduardo.
Due to his age, the 70-year-old head of the now-opposition Peronist Party was put under house arrest rather than jailed and flown to a friend's chalet outside Buenos Aires. If found guilty in the case he could face up to 10 years in prison.
The South American country had been gripped by feverish speculation Mr Menem would be arrested after his ex-army chief Mr Martin Balza became on Wednesday the third influential figure of his 1989-99 period in power to be held in the arms case.
Mr Menem, one of Latin America's most charismatic politicians of the 1990s, had told a crush of reporters when he arrived at the courthouse: "I don't know if I shall remain free."
Together with three former ministers, his ex-brother-in-law and Balza, Mr Menem is suspected of trafficking rifles, cannons, shells and gunpowder to Croatia in 1991 and 1993 in the Balkans war - violating a UN arms embargo - and to Ecuador in 1995 in a war with Peru in which Argentina was a peace mediator.
Mr Menem and former aides under suspicion say they authorised arms shipments to Panama and Venezuela but did not know they would be diverted to countries at war. They blame officials at the state arms factory and an Argentine arms dealer who has fled to South Africa to avoid prosecution.
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