Former spy to testify on death of Argentinian prosecutor

A former spy was due to give evidence on Thursday in the investigation into the sudden death of Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was about to testify against the country’s president amid allegations of a cover-up of Iranian involvement in a terror attack on a Jewish center.

Investigators summoned Antonio Stiusso, a senior agent who was recently fired, and who had helped Nisman with his research into the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 and left hundreds injured.

Stiusso was scheduled to give his testimony at 9 a.m. in the Argentinian capital, the report said, citing the News agency DyN. Viviana Fein, lead investigator into the death, called for Stiusso to testify after checking Nisman’s phone records.

Nisman, 51, was found dead in the early hours of January 19 in his Buenos Aires apartment, the same day he was to testify that President Cristina Kirchner had obstructed the investigation into Iranian officials implicated in the 1994 bombing. The prosecutor also accused Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, who is Jewish, of participating in the cover-up.

Kirchner and Timerman have denied allegations that they secretly negotiated oil in exchange for shielding Iranian officials from charges that they orchestrated the bombing.

Nisman’s death in suspicious circumstances — investigators at first said it was suicide but did not rule out foul play — has piled pressure on Kirchner to find out who pulled the trigger.

Kirchner disbanded the country’s intelligence service after the outcry that followed Nisman’s death and said his demise was part of a plot to discredit her.

Kirchner suggested Nisman had been manipulated by former intelligence agents who then killed him to smear her, but has offered no evidence to support her theory and did not say who she thought was behind Nisman‘s death.

The death has rocked Argentina’s leadership and also sparked rallies in the Jewish community in support of the late prosecutor.

Fein confirmed earlier this week that Nisman had prepared a draft of an arrest warrant for Kirchner, the existence of which the president had initially denied, according to The New York Times. Documents found in Nisman’s garbage by police investigators also called for the arrest of Timerman.