BUENOS AIRES – Amira Yoma, erstwhile sister-in-law and private secretary of former Argentine President Carlos Menem, survived “by chance” after the car she was driving was shot at by unknown persons, her husband said Tuesday.

Jorge Marchetti said that his wife “is in good health, thank God,” but that she received threats over the phone soon after Monday night’s attack in Buenos Aires.

“She survived by chance. The bullets just grazed her,” Marchetti told Todo Noticias cable television.

He said that Yoma tried to elude a car that was following her and in her maneuvering the vehicle was hit by two bullets, one of which nearly hit her.

Police have not yet determined whether Yoma was the victim of an attempted holdup or a failed attempt on her life, authorities said.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Amira Yoma – sister of Menem’s first wife, Zulema Yoma – was indicted and later acquitted on charges of laundering money for Spanish drug traffickers.

“Yomagate,” as the Argentine press dubbed the case, began in 1991 and ended in 2003 when Menem’s former campaign manager, Mario Caserta, was sentenced to five years in jail.

Several judges that investigated the case were promoted or moved to other courts, which at the time was interpreted by the opposition as a maneuver by the Menem government to free those indicted of any responsibility, including Amira Yoma’s Syrian-born ex-husband, Ibrahim Al Ibrahim, who fled the country. Prosecutions for corruption during Menem’s 1989-1999 tenure continue to wind their way through the Argentine courts. EFE