Reporter who broke news of Nisman’s death lands in Israel

The journalist who was first to report the gunshot death of federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman landed in Israel on Sunday, having fled from Argentina because he believed his life was in danger.

Damian Pachter, of the English-language Buenos Aires Herald, left the country Saturday, and arrived at Ben-Gurion airport on Sunday evening.

He said he was being chased by Argentinian security forces, that his phones were being tapped, and that he “had to move as fast as I could” to “leave the country right away.”

Pachter said he came to Israel because he is an Israeli citizen “and this is the place where I feel safe.”

“I intend to return to Argentina when my sources tell me conditions have changed,” he had told a local internet site on Saturday. “I don’t think that will happen in the term of this government.”

In a statement, Pachter’s employer said the journalist had not expressed his concerns to the newspaper and that the Buenos Aires Herald was ready to help him in any way possible.

Meanwhile, authorities said Diego Lagomarsino, a computer expert and colleague who said he had brought prosecutor Alberto Nisman a handgun Saturday night at his request, has been barred from leaving Argentina.

Lagomarsino, who spoke to authorities soon after Nisman’s death, said he had given a .22-caliber pistol to Nisman because the prosecutor wanted it for protection.

Nisman was found dead last Sunday, the day before he was to testify before congress about his explosive allegations that President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner shielded Iranian officials wanted in the South American country’s biggest terrorist attack.

Nisman was shot from a distance of at least 15 centimeters, according to the findings of an initial forensics exam, a source in the country’s Federal Police told local media on Saturday.

The finding completely contradicts the government’s initial claims that Nisman had committed suicide, an assertion Kirchner has since backtracked from.

The forensics exam also confirmed that there was no exit wound, a result expected when a gun is pressed to the temple, the Federal Police source said.

Kirchner, who has dismissed Nisman’s allegations of a cover-up in the bombing, published two letters on social media this week about the prosecutor’s death — the first saying it appeared he had killed himself, then a second saying she was now convinced it wasn’t a suicide.

Nisman’s allegations, she said, were based on false information given to him by the former head of the intelligence services. In her second letter, published Thursday, she portrayed Nisman’s death as a way to damage her administration.