Argentine President Kirchner Charged In Bombing Probe

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Prosecutors have ordered an investigation into the President’s role in the alleged cover-up of Iranian links to a 1994 bomb attack in Buenos Aires.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman are to be investigated by federal prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita relating to the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) bombing, write Michael B. Kelley, Linette Lopez and Armin Rosen of Business Insider. The original complaint was filed by deceased AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found dead after investigating the attack. His complaint has now been given the green light by Pollicita.

Kirchner shielding Iran?

Nisman accused Kirchner of covering up for the perpetrators of the terrorist attack, and pushed for her arrest. He claimed that the bombers were funded by Iran, but Kirchner protected them in order to push through a food-for-oil exchange between Argentina and Iran.

A report in The New York Times claimed that conversations between officials of the two countries “point to a long pattern of secret negotiations to reach a deal in which Argentina would receive oil in exchange for shielding Iranian officials” from official accusations of responsibility for the bombing.

Those conversations formed a part of Nisman’s 289-page criminal complaint. If they are genuine, they show “a concerted effort by representatives of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s government to shift suspicions away from Iran in order to gain access to Iranian markets and to ease Argentina’s energy troubles.”

Suspicious death

Nisman investigated the car-bomb attack on the AMIA for 10 years, and concluded that the Iranian government planned and executed the attack, which caused the deaths of 85 people.

His death was initially considered as a suicide, given that he was killed by a single shot to the head from a gun that was found clasped in his hand. However the lack of an exit wound suggested the shot had been fired from a greater distance. The suicide theory was thrown into further doubt by the discovery of Whatsapp messages relating to his next day at work, as well as the fact that he had sent his maid a shopping list for the next week.

The removal of a 10-man government-security team from his apartment on the night of his death make the circumstances become even more suspicious, as well as the fact that there was no gunpowder residue on Nisman’s hands, proving that he did not fire the fatal shot.

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