By Staff Writer, Iran Probe
Saturday, 26 March 2016
U.S. President Barack Obama, in a joint press conference with his Argentine counterpart Mauricio Macri in Buenos Aires, emphasized on holding accountable those behind the city’s terror attacks.
Obama was referring to the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing and said he has informed the Argentine President the United States can provide all the assistance needed to finally place these attackers before justice.
Last year the late Judge Alberto Nisman, investigating the AMIA center terrorist bombing and the involvement of senior Iranian regime officials in this crime, was murdered inside his home in January 2015.
In a positive turn of events, a year after the murder of Judge Nisman his murder case was transferred to the Argentine Federal Court to be investigated as a murder case.
The three-judge criminal appeals court in Buenos Aires unanimously voted for the Nisman murder case to be referred to the Federal Court, known to pursue political murders in Argentina. The court judges said Nisman’s murder can be “the result of a third-party’s activities”. This was a reference to the Iranian regime.
In the Buenos Aires court hearings, Manuel Romero Victorica, a lawyer of the Nisman relatives, read out a number of the threats Judge Nisman had received in the last weeks of his life. One of these messages to Nisman reads, “We will fulfill our promise for your murder… We have been able to separate you from the AMIA case and without you we will gain an agreement between Argentina and Iran.”
In an interview with Iranian opposition “INTV” satellite TV station, Juan Pablo Biglero, another lawyer of the Nisman family, explained the importance of Judge Nisman’s murder case being referred to the Federal Court as “acknowledging the probability of murder, and the fact that the murder of Federal Judge (Nisman) could have taken place because of his work as a terrorism investigator working on the AMIA terror attack… Following their initial shock and deep despair, all of Nisman’s family are seeking to establish justice and prevent impunity.”
“We all want to know how he was murdered, who and what organization ordered his murder, and what motives were behind it. (We want) the identity of the perpetrators involved (to be identified),” he added.
Martin Angolo, a reporter of Argentina’s Infobae and an expert in judicial affairs, said in an interview with INTV: “The criminal appeals court… has mentioned this case that (Nisman’s) death took place four days after the revelation of (former) Argentine President Cristina Kirchner’s concealment in the AMIA files, and one day prior to Nisman’s scheduled appearance in the parliament to explain his filed complaint. This is where the memorandum of understanding with the Iranian regime comes into play. Nisman had said this is a tool Fernandez administration officials intended to use to provide cover for the elements behind the AMIA attack.”
