Argentina's disgraced former finance minister Mr Domingo Cavallo was released from a two-month jail stint today after a court threw out arms smuggling charges against him.
Mr Cavallo was toppled from power along with former President Fernando de la Rua late last year after his failed economic policies triggered bloody riots that left 27 dead.
The Argentine public reviled him for a hated savings withdrawal freeze that strangled the economy, for tax increases and for policies that saw joblessness rocket and poverty deepen. Protesters still pelt his Buenos Aires home with eggs.
The former Wall Street darling was jailed as part of a probe into illegal sales of cannons, rifles, ammunition and gunpowder to Croatia and Ecuador between 1991 and 1995.
Mr Cavallo served as a minister in the early 1990s under former President Carlos Menem, who was placed under house arrest last year amid the arms probe. Mr Menem was later released.