International
Rodrigo Abd / AP
Investigators examining the death of a prosecutor who accused Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of protecting the alleged masterminds of a 1994 terror bombing said they have found a draft document the prosecutor had written, requesting Kirchner’s arrest.
Chief investigator Viviana Fein said Tuesday the draft detention request was found in a trash bin of the apartment where Alberto Nisman's body was found on Jan. 18, a .22 caliber pistol by his side. The detention request was not included in a complaint Nisman had filed in federal court days earlier.
Nisman was found dead in his bathroom hours before he was set to appear in Congress to detail his allegations that Kirchner had agreed to protect those responsible for the 1994 bombing of Buenos Aires' largest Jewish community center.
Nisman had accused Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman of reaching an agreement with Iran to avoid prosecution of eight Iranians, including former senior officials, charged with involvement in the bombing. That deal with Iran, Nisman had said, would open a lucrative trade in Argentine grains and meat for Iranian oil — a pact that would help Argentina close its $7 billion per year energy deficit.
The 1994 attack on the Buenos Aires headquarters of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association, or AMIA, was the deadliest such strike in Argentina's history. Besides the 85 people killed, more than 300 were injured when a van loaded with explosives was detonated in front of the building.
Argentine courts have demanded the extradition of eight Iranians — including former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, and Iran's former cultural attaché in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Rabbani — over the bombing.
Kirchner’s government has said two men who Nisman believed were deeply involved in the alleged cover-up of the attack had been falsely presented to him as state intelligence agents. She said the deception discredited Nisman's charges against her, and points to a conspiracy to smear her name.
In a Facebook post days after Nisman's death, Kirchner claimed that he was killed to immerse her government in scandal after he had been “used” to publicly accuse her of involvement in the cover-up.
The Kirchner government had dismissed Nisman's charges as ridiculous, and it has suggested the scandal involves a power struggle at Argentina's intelligence agency.
Kirchner has since supported a move to dissolve the country's intelligence network and replace it with a new federal agency.
Al Jazeera and The Associated Press
Argentinians riled over suspicious death of prosecutor who accused president of Iran cover-up
Prosecutor accuses Cristina Fernández of secret deal with Tehran to spare six Iranian officials for 1994 bomb attack
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