Argentina Accused of Covering Up Iran Involvement in Bombing
Monday, January 19, 2015 | Israel Today Staff
The lead prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina was found dead on Sunday, just hours before he was to present parliament with evidence that the government had covered up Iranian involvement in the terrorist attack. According to statements made by prosecutor Alberto Nisman (pictured), some to the Israeli news site Times of Israel, Iran had decided to attack Argentina after the latter suspended nuclear cooperation with the Islamic Republic.
“When they choose to act against a country, the attack is commonly on the Jewish community,” said Nisman. Evidence collected by the prosecutor suggested the attack was planned and ordered by the upper echelons of Iran’s leadership, including then-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But that evidence has never been officially accepted because, as Nisman charged prior to his untimely death, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner engaged in a cover-up both to appease Tehran and to facilitate new trade relations between Argentina and Iran. “The president and her foreign minister took the criminal decision to fabricate Iran’s innocence to sate Argentina’s commercial, political and geopolitical interests,” Nisman told the Buenos Aires Herald.
All of this was to be presented to the Argentine parliament on Monday. Nisman was found with a single fatal bullet wound to the head. Despite the circumstances, police initially determined his death to be a suicide.
In addition to the clear signs of a government cover-up, the episode draws attention to the fact that Iranian leadership’s problem is not with Israel alone, but with Jews in general, no matter how much it might claim otherwise. In Buenos Aires, Jews were attacked simply because they were Jews in a matter with little or no connection to Israel.
