New tests discredit notion that Argentina’s Nisman committed suicide

Gunpowder found on weapon but not hands constitutes ‘conclusive proof’ of murder, former wife says

Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman. (Natacha Pisarenko/AP)
Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman. (Natacha Pisarenko/AP)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Experts confirmed Monday that three laboratory analyses performed on the gun believed to have killed the special prosecutor for a 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center tested positive for traces of gunpowder residue.

The .22 caliber Bersa that killed Alberto Nisman tested positive for the first time, in the three electronic scans performed at the Scientific Laboratory of Tax Investigation, in the northern province of Salta. The tests detected antimony, barium and lead.

This new information dovetails with a test performed in February, which also detected no gunpowder on Nisman’s hands.

The result seems to negate the possibility that Nisman committed suicide, and support the theory that someone else shot him, or that someone cleaned the prosecutor’s hand. Some experts also said Monday that if the environmental conditions of the tests had slight changes the results could be different.

In July forensic pathologist Cyril Wech analyzed the case and said he believes that Nisman likely was murdered.

Prosecutor Viviana Fein has not yet released a final ruling. “I cannot determine for the moment whether it was a suicide or a homicide,” she said on March 6, when she convened the authors of the independent forensic report to examine their evidence. Her final ruling likely will be released after the October presidential elections.

A man walks over the rubble left after a bomb exploded at the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, 18 July 1994. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO / Ali BURAFI)
A man walks over the rubble left after a bomb exploded at the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, 18 July 1994. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO / Ali BURAFI)

Nisman’s body was found on January 18, hours before he was to present evidence to Argentine lawmakers that President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the 1994 attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish center in Buenos Aires that left 85 dead and hundreds wounded.

“This is conclusive proof about the murder. After this test, to argue that this is a suicide you must say that Nisman shot himself with gloves and after that he took them off,” Nisman’s former wife Sandra Arroyo Salgado, who is also a judge, said Tuesday in an interview with Radio Mitre.

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