Argentina’s Kirchner absolved of Iran ‘cover-up’

An Argentinean court exonerates President Cristina Kirchner of charges that she may have covered up Iran’s involvement in a terror attack against a Jewish community building in Buenos Aires in 1994, in which 85 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

Kirchner was cleared of the charges brought forth by investigator Alberto Nisman, who dedicated many years to the case and was found dead in his home the day before he was expected to address the Argentinean Congress to present his findings.

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner in Buenos Aires, on January 30, 2015. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO / ALEJANDRO PAGNI)

It is not clear whether Nisman killed himself or committed suicide (if you want to get a glimpse of this publication’s view, read this). Kirchner, who seems on the face of it to have a reason to want Nisman out of the way, took to Facebook a few weeks after his death and says she believes he was killed by intelligence agents who used Nisman to make allegations against her. Kirchner at the time claimed that Nisman was “disposed of” once the master spies had no use for him.

Also on Thursday, Argentina’s congress passed a law creating a new intelligence service. By a vote of 131 to 71, the Chamber of Deputies passed the bill dissolving the Intelligence Secretariat and replacing it with a body called the Federal Intelligence Agency.

— AFP contributed