Argentina seeks arrest of 1992 terror suspects

ARGENTINA’S SUPREME Court has taken steps to revive the investigation into the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires by requesting international arrest warrants for two Lebanese suspects.

The probe into the tragedy, a suicide car bomb attack that killed at least 22 people, had been largely paralysed. Hizbollah is widely believed to have been behind the bombing.

The Supreme Court judges requested an arrest warrant for Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman, a Lebanese who they believe was an operative for Hizbollah.

The judges say Mr Suleiman, who was questioned in Jordan in 2001, entered Argentina from Brazil with explosives weeks before the attack. These explosives were then used in the bombing.

The court said it has been investigating Mr Suleiman since 2005, but that it only received confirmation of its findings about him from Israeli diplomats last month.

Earlier this year, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner criticised Israel for what she said was its lack of interest in the case.

“I still can’t understand why Israel complains about Amia but doesn’t say anything about the bombing of its own embassy,” she said, referring to a similar car bomb attack two years later on the Amia Jewish community centre in the Argentine capital that killed 85 people.

The court also renewed its request for the arrest of José Salman El Reda, a Lebanese who has lived in Colombia. His brother is believed to have been involved in the Amia bombing.

Mr El Reda was once arrested in Argentina with a stash of fake dollars that investigators believe may have financed a terrorist attack. But prosecutors never proved a concrete link to the embassy bombing, according to local news media reports.

The two bombing investigations are regarded a national disgrace.

The Amia case has been marred by setbacks, including the mysterious death this year of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor leading the investigation.