Argentines rally to remember prosecutor killed while probing AMIA attack

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentines paid tribute Saturday to a prosecutor on the fifth anniversary of his unsolved death while probing the bombing of a Jewish community center — an attack in which he alleged a presidential cover-up to shield Iran in exchange for trade.

Prosecutor Alberto Nisman led the probe of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association headquarters, which left 85 dead and 300 wounded.

In 2015, his body was found in his Buenos Aires apartment with a gunshot wound to the head, delivered at close range from a handgun found at his side.

His death came days after he directly accused then-president Cristina Kirchner, now the vice president, and some of her top aides of covering up Iran’s alleged involvement in the bombing.

Kirchner, who was in office from 2007 to 2015, is accused of having attempted to conceal Iranian involvement in the bombing in return for lucrative trade deals with her government.

People hold signs during the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the death of the special prosecutor in the AMIA case, Alberto Nisman, on January 18, 2020, in Buenos Aires. (RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP)

Nisman’s body was found on January 18, 2015, hours before he was to present evidence to back up his claim. His death was initially ruled a likely suicide but an Argentine federal appeals court later found that he was murdered.

On Saturday night, some 3,000 demonstrators at a commemorative rally in Buenos Aires shouted “murderer” every time Kirchner’s name was mentioned as their way of blaming her for Nisman’s death. They denied suggestions that he had committed suicide.

Kirchner, who was indicted in 2017 in connection with the alleged cover-up of Iran’s involvement in the bombing, denies any wrongdoing.

Nisman’s mother, Sara Garfunkel, said that in the past five years Argentina has failed to find justice for her son’s death.

“This prosecutor was murdered and we know nothing. I do not understand how a man of his strength and determination could commit suicide,” said another demonstrator, a 55-year-old woman who gave her name as Maria.

In this photo from July 18, 1994, a man walks over the rubble left after of the Argentinian Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires after it was targeted in a deadly bombing. (Ali Burafi/AFP)

At the rally, the current president, center-left Alberto Fernandez, came in for heavy criticism. He said this month he doubts Nisman killed himself but said there is no evidence of murder.

Also Saturday, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo marked the five-year anniversary by calling “on all nations to designate #Hizballah as the terrorist organization it is.”

In Nisman’s investigation, he established that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group was responsible for the carnage.