A Troubling Death in Argentina

Posted By on January 20th, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-troubling-death-in-argentina-1421710559

A prosecutor who fingered Iran dies the day before he was to tell all.

Argentine federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman was set to deliver proof to the Argentine Congress Monday of an alleged cover-up by President Cristina Kirchner of Iran’s responsibility in the 1994 terrorist attack on a Buenos Aires Jewish community center. Hours before the hearing, Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment.

Argentine security officials said a .22 caliber pistol and one shell were found near the body. Within hours the government’s secretary of security declared Nisman’s death an apparent suicide. The coroner hasn’t made a final ruling but the timing of his death is cause for suspicion. Last week he filed a criminal complaint alleging that Mrs. Kirchner and foreign minister Hector Timerman conspired to bury the truth about the bombing of the Jewish center, which killed 85, in exchange for deals to sell food to Tehran and buy its oil.

Known for his independence, Nisman claimed in a summary of a report released to the public last week that he had found “judicially ordered wire-tapped telephone conversations” to support his allegations. Referring to the cover-up, he told The Wall Street Journal in an email Friday that he would “explain it in detail” to Congress on Monday.

Nisman had been investigating the attack since 2005 and concluded it was carried out by Iran and its Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. In October 2006 he indicted a member of Hezbollah and seven Iranians, including former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former Iranian minister of information and security, a former foreign relations minister, and Ahmad Vahidi, a former commander of the Quds force and Iran’s defense minister from 2009 until 2013. Mohsen Rabbani, the former Iranian cultural attache in Buenos Aires, was also named.Interpol issued “red notices” for the arrest of seven of the eight.

That seemed like progress. But in late 2012 the Kirchner government admitted that it was negotiating with Tehran over the charges—at the U.N. in New York and Geneva—in what amounted to a diplomatic plea-bargain. In January 2013 Argentina announced a memorandum of understanding with Iran to form a “truth commission” in the case, though a court found that idea unconstitutional.

Nisman’s plan to submit his evidence to Congress and to a judge renowned for his independence was a potential threat to the government. Mr. Timerman excoriated Nisman last week, but Nisman replied that Mr. Timerman could tell it to the judge.

On Monday that judge asked for “urgent measures” to protect the evidence that Nisman had collected. His investigation needs a new champion who won’t join the Kirchner regime in letting the killers off the hook.

Categorized under: ANTI-SEMITISM.
Tagged with: no tags.

Comments are closed.