Bombing investigator murdered, says judge
AN ARGENTINE prosecutor was murdered days after accusing the country’s former president of hiding details of Iran’s involvement in a Jewish community centre bombing, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
Alberto Nisman was found dead nearly three years ago after accusing the then President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, of working to clear the Tehran regime of responsibility in an investigation into the 1994 attack.
“Nisman’s death could not have been a suicide,” federal judge Julian Ercolini said in a 656-page ruling.
Mr Nisman was found dead in January 2015, days after alleging that President Fernández had covered up Tehran’s part in the attack, when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive-lad- en Renault van in front of the Buenos Aires headquarters of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association.
It caused a building collapse that left 85 people dead and 300 injured.
Mr Nisman had spent the last decade of his life investigating the attack, after being appointed in 2004 by Néstor Kirchner, Ms Fernández de Kirchner’s husband and predecessor as president. The appointment was praised as a breakthrough at the time, following bungled and corrupt attempts to prosecute the case.
However, Mr Nisman formally accused the Iranian Government of masterminding the attack and carrying it out through local Hezbollah agents.
He also accused Ms de Kirchner of secretly working to clear Iran of responsibility for the bombing, as part of a plan to normalise ties and seal a 2013 grains-for-oil deal between the two countries.
Judge Ercolini’s findings concluded there was adequate evidence showing that the shot to the head that killed the prosecutor was not fired by Mr Nisman himself — the first time a judge has called Mr Nisman’s death a murder.
The ruling also charged Diego Lagomarsino, one of Mr Nisman’s employees, as an accessory to murder.
Mr Lagomarsino admitted lending Mr Nisman the gun that killed him, on the day before he was due to make his allegations against Ms Kirchner in Argentina’s parliament. However, he claimed his employer had asked for the gun to protect himself and his family.
Ms de Kirchner, now a serving senator, was indicted this month for treason as a result of the claims. Iran denies any connection to the attack. Argentine authorities have so far only announced that DNA belonging to two others was found in the bathroom where Mr Nisman was discovered dead.
Informally, however, the principal suspects are believed to be warring factions in the Argentine intelligence services and Iranian Government, Haaretz reported.
The judge said his death could not be a suicide