Argentine president ‘determined’ to solve Nisman case
Previous government’s failure to determine whether prosecutor was murdered ‘made us look weak in the world’

Argentinian President Mauricio Macri said he was “determined” to solve the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found shot dead early in 2015, in remarks published Thursday.
Macri, who has been vocal in calling for a thorough investigation of Nisman’s death last year and Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, said the affairs had given Argentina a black eye.
“Everything that happened made us look weak in the world,” Macri said. “But now we are determined to bring what happened to light.”
Macri assumed power in December after campaigning on promises to break from the shady ways of the past, open up Latin America’s third-largest economy after years of isolation and reverse many of the policies of his left-leaning predecessor, who, during her eight years in office, aligned herself with socialist leaders in Cuba and Venezuela while often being publicly antagonistic toward the US.

In January, he ordered government agencies to declassify every file related to Nisman’s death and to send all the files to Judge Fabiana Palmaghini, who was put in charge of a new stage of the investigation after the case was removed from prosecutor Viviana Fein one month before.
The Argentinian secret service said at the time that it would allow its agents to appear before Palmaghini to provide information about how the agency protected or may have spied on the late prosecutor.
Nisman, a special prosecutor investigating Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing, was found dead in January 2015 with a gunshot wound to the head. Though initially ruled a suicide, many suspected foul play.
Days before, Nisman had accused former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of helping Iranian officials hide Iran’s role in the attack. Fernandez has denied the allegations.
Nisman’s death shook Argentina. For many, it was one more sign of a failed justice system.
In January, Macri visited Nisman’s daughters and promised “to do justice for the memory of your father.”
The president’s visit to the family contrasted radically with the approach of Fernandez, who neither received Nisman’s relatives nor expressed condolences to the Nisman family, and posthumously accused Nisman of using public funds to hire prostitutes.
The President’s Office said in a statement on Twitter at the time that Macri expressed “the recognition of the State of Argentine for the work” Nisman did in the 1995 Jewish community center bombing case.