Argentina probes mystery DNA at dead prosecutor’s home

Experts unable to trace source after analyzing evidence from Alberto Nisman’s home

By AFP 10 February 2015, 9:10 pm

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Alberto Nisman, the slain prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center, talks to journalists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, May 29, 2013. (AP/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentine forensic experts began work Tuesday to trace the source of unidentified DNA found at the home of a prosecutor who died mysteriously while investigating alleged misconduct by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Investigators searching prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s Buenos Aires apartment after he was found dead on January 18 uncovered DNA that differed from his but has not yet been identified.

“It remains unknown who the genetic profile that differs from Nisman’s corresponds to,” said Judge Fabiana Palmaghini.

Nisman, 51, was found with a gunshot wound to the head on the eve of a congressional hearing at which he was expected to accuse Kirchner of shielding Iranian officials from prosecution over a 1994 bombing at a Buenos Aires Jewish center that killed 85 people.

The death was initially labeled a suicide, but suspicion has fallen on Kirchner’s government of orchestrating Nisman’s murder.

The president for her part has suggested Nisman was manipulated by disgruntled former intelligence agents who then killed him to smear her.

Nisman had accused Iran of ordering the bombing at the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association via Lebanon-based Shiite movement Hezbollah.

Four days before he was found dead, he filed a 300-page report accusing Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman of trying to cover up high-ranking Iranian officials’ involvement in the attack in exchange for oil.