MAN WHO LED PROBE INTO 1994 BLAST WAS MURDERED, PROSECUTOR CLAIMS

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA A prosecutor is formally declaring for the first time that the man probing Argentina’s worst terror attack was murdered and didn’t kill himself.

The opinion presented to a judge by prosecutor Eduardo Taiano reignites a case that shook Argentine politics with suspicions of high-level homicide in the 2015 death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

A prosecution staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Taiano also asked the judge to order testimony by computer specialist Diego Lagomarsino, a Nisman aide who owned the gun used to kill the prosecutor. The aide has said he loaned the gun to Nisman for protection because the prosecutor feared for his and his daughters’ lives.

Nisman’s death came four days after he formally accused then-President Cristina Fernandez of covering up Iranian officials’ role in a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people at a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. Nisman accused Fernandez and other officials of brokering the deal in exchange for favourable deals on oil and other goods from Iran.

Fernandez has always insisted she had nothing to with a coverup or with Nisman’s death, while Iran has repeatedly denied involvement in the bombing.