Prosecutor orders death of Nisman probed as murder
Suspect named in homicide of Argentinean prosecutor
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) – The death of the AMIA Jewish center bombing special prosecutor Alberto Nisman must be investigated as a murder, according to the special prosecutor looking into Nisman’s death.
Prosecutor Eduargo Taiano on Wednesday also identified a suspect in the death: Diego Lagomarsino, an IT employee in Nisman’s office.
Taiano asked the judge in the case to interrogate Lagomarsino as a participant in an assassination plan. According to the prosecutor, Lagomarsino provided the gun that was used to prepare a fake suicide scenario.
In January 2015, Lagomarsino said that he went to Nisman’s apartment to give him a “very old” .22 caliber pistol to protect himself, after Nisman expressed fears that he was being targeted by supporters of then-president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Hours later, Nisman was found dead by a bullet from that gun fired at point-blank range above his right ear. So far, Lagomarsino has been charged only with lending the pistol to Nisman.
Taiano on Wednesday asked that the case be formally classified as “homicide,” changing the previous “suspicious death” designation, which is a new twist in the complicated case. The prosecutor requested the new measures after analyzing a report produced in September by forensic investigators from the country’s border patrol guard, or Gendarmerie.
The prosecutor also requested an investigation of the police guards that handled security for Nisman. Four members of the team of 10 guard were charged Wednesday with non-fulfillment of duties.
Nisman’s body was found on January 18, 2015, hours before he was to present evidence to Argentinean lawmakers that Fernandez de Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 and wounded more than 300.