BUENOS AIRES (WJC)–Alberto Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor who last week accused President Cristina Fernandez of trying to whitewash Argentina’s worst ever bombing, was found dead in his apartment on Monday morning, Jan. 19. The timing and circumstances of his death are under investigation.
Nisman, the state prosecutor investigating the 1994 blast at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, said last Wednesday that Fernandez had opened a secret back channel to a group of Iranians suspected of planting the bomb. He had said the scheme intended to clear the suspects so Argentina could start swapping grains for much-needed oil from Iran.
Argentine news media reported that Nisman was found shot dead in his bathtub in his flat in the luxurious Buenos Aires district of Puerto Madero. A police official said a weapon had been found, and the cause of the death was still being investigated, but first signs were pointing towards a suicide.
Nisman had been due to appear in front of lawmakers on Monday afternoon to explain his accusations, which said that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner tried to whitewash Iran’s involvement in the 1994 terror attack against the headquarters of the Jewish umbrella bodies AMIA and DAIA in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed and hundreds wounded.
Over the past years, the prosecutor had presented detailed evidence against several Iranian officials, including then-President Rafsanjani, and accused Tehran of masterminding the bombing.
In 2013, Fernández and her Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman negotiated a memorandum of understanding with Tehran to set up a “truth commission” with Iran to jointly investigate the bombing. She said at the time that the pact would reactivate the probe, but Israel and Jewish groups said it threatened to derail criminal prosecution of the case. The truth commission pact was later struck down by an Argentine court.
Nisman had said the truth commission was intended to help get Interpol ‘red notices’ for the arrest of the accused Iranians dropped as a step toward normalizing bilateral trade relations.
In New York, the American Jewish Committee said it was “shocked” by Nisman’s death.
“This is a personal tragedy for the Nisman family and a national tragedy for Argentina,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris, who, together with Dina Siegel Vann, director of AJC’s Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs, met with him frequently. “Argentina’s Jewish community has suffered another mortal blow in the 21-year pursuit of justice.”
“Without question, Alberto was the right man for this challenging assignment,” Harris continued. “Tenacious and undeterred, he was determined to bring to justice all who were responsible, Iranians, Hezbollah operatives and Argentineans, for the AMIA massacre. With his passing, will his tireless efforts be continued by others, as he doubtless would have wished, or will they be shelved? The world will be watching.
In 2013, Nisman authored a 500-page report detailing how Tehran has methodically placed terror operatives in several Latin American countries, using Iranian embassies, local mosques and front companies connected with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, to form “intelligence structures” that can strike when needed
Nisman’s body was found in his apartment only hours before he was to meet with Argentine legislators to discuss his accuastions against the president and foreign minister.
AJC, a partner organization of the AMIA, has stood at the side of the Argentine Jewish community from the first moments of the tragedy in 1994, when an AJC group traveled to Buenos Aires to express solidarity with the victims and their families and to call for justice. Since then, AJC delegations have returned at least annually and met frequently with Argentine officials, including, since his appointment as Special Prosecutor in the case, Alberto Nisman.
Abraham H. Foxman, Anti-Defamation League National Director, issued the following statement:
“We are shocked and deeply saddened by news of the death of Alberto Nisman, a courageous and principled seeker of truth and justice who cared deeply for the victims of the AMIA bombing and their families and pursued his investigation wherever the facts took him.
“He was a true believer in justice, the rule of law, and the role of the judiciary as a bulwark against political maneuvers to derail his investigation and prevent justice for the victims.
“Mr. Nisman’s death is another tragic episode in the sordid saga of Argentina’s failure to act decisively and unceasingly to find, arrest and prosecute those responsible for the AMIA terror attack. His passing will extend the decades-long delays in bringing the Iranian masterminds and perpetrators to justice.
“The timing and circumstances of Mr. Nisman’s death, coming just days after he released detailed allegations of high-level government attempts to evade his investigation and hours before he was scheduled to present additional details to members of the Argentine Congress, raise serious questions about whether Mr. Nisman’s death was related to his work on the AMIA bombing.
“A full and transparent investigation is needed to conclusively determine all of the circumstances surrounding his untimely death.”
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Preceding compiled from World Jewish Congress report and news releases