Argentinian President Javier Milei called for justice for Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) bombing prosecutor Alberto Nisman and the victims of the terrorist attack on the anniversary of Nisman's death on Saturday, days after a new Public Prosecutor's report affirming that Nisman was murdered due to his investigations and an alleged cover-up through a memorandum with Iran.
Public Prosecutor Eduardo Taiano on January 10 concluded that Nisman, who was found dead in his apartment in January 2015, was the victim of a homicide motivated by his impending report on a 2013 Iranian-Argentinian memorandum of understanding on the 1994 AMIA bombing.
Taiano's report reviewed a decade of investigations and evidence since the murder, which had originally been labeled a suicide, and said in a statement that "measures are being taken to determine the identity of those who carried out the crime and who ordered it." The prosecutor requested the declassification of intelligence documentation on the prosecutor's death.
Milei said in a Saturday statement that he was confident that the judiciary would continue investigations into the alleged murder as well as Nisman's complaint. The president also reaffirmed his commitment to ensure justice for the AMIA attack victims, saying that he had presented a bill to Congress for trial in absentia.
Nisman died just four days after he publicly accused then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her government of a cover-up on behalf of the terrorist attack's perpetrators, and, as Milei noted Saturday, two days before he was set to present a detailed report to Congress. According to last Friday's report the memorandum accused the Argentinian leaders of violation of their duties by allegedly negotiating impunity for Iranian and Hezbollah operatives allegedly responsible for the death of 85 AMIA victims.
Death orchestrated
A day before Nisman was allegedly murdered, a fire destroyed information and documents pertaining to the memorandum's negotiation and requested in the public servant's complaint.
The investigation into Nisman's death was confounded, according to Taiano, but irregularities and actions divert its course to different actors.
Taiano asserted that Nisman's death had been orchestrated to make it appear that he had committed suicide in his bathroom. Taiano alleged that Diego Lagomarsino, who worked with Nisman, was part of the deception. Lagomarsino claimed that he visited Nisman before his death to give him his gun, which later was used to kill Nisman at the victim's request. Taiano said that the narrative was disproved by communications that revealed that Lagomarsino initiated communications.
Taiano also found that the Argentine Federal Police, meant to protect Nisman, repeatedly abandoned him for long periods of time and left him alone for 12 hours before his death, despite having an Islamic regime fatwa on his head for his work uncovering Iranian activity.
The report detailed that the fatwa came after Nisman's 2006 work that led to the issuance of INTERPOL notice of Iranian officials and operatives for their role in the bombing. During Nisman's 10 year investigation he detailed how Iran used diplomatic, religious, and cultural institutions a cover for intelligence, propaganda, and recruitment operations.
The report followed a 2018 Buenos Aires Federal Court ruling that Nisman was murdered because of his impending complaint rather than having committed suicide. According to JTA, a 2015 forensics report found that there was no gunpowder on Nisman's hands, precluding a theory of suicide. Reuters reported that an Argentine judge in 2021 dismissed a case against Kirchner, alleging that she covered up Iran's involvement in the 1994 bombing with attempts to sign the memorandum with Iran.
Kirchner shared on social media the Saturday post by Senator Oscar Parrilli, a member of her Justicialist Party. Parrilli asserted that on every anniversary of Nisman's supposed suicide, new documents and reports were published. Parilli argued that the 2015 forensics report was faulty and state forensic bodies had ruled his death a suicide. In contrast to statements by the Gendarmerie, the senator said that the Argentine Federal Police also ruled the prosecutor's death a suicide.
Parrilli questioned why Lagomarsino was not being prosecuted if he was involved in the murder. He claimed that Lagomarsino was a close friend of Nisman and was a fervent hater of Kirchner.
AMIA, Nisman's widow, Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, and his mother paid tribute to the prosecutor at an anniversary ceremony last Monday. Several officials attended the event.
Arroyo Salgado described Nisman as a fearless agent of the law, according to an AMIA statement saying that “His murder and the subsequent campaign of discredit by the government in power were of immeasurable baseness, but they do not succeed in burying his personal or professional projects.”
Buenos Aires Security Minister Waldo Wolff and other participants also affirmed their belief that he was murdered for his investigations into Kirchner's alleged "complicity" with the Islamic Republic.
In April, the Federal Court of Criminal Cassation determined that Iran and Hezbollah committed crimes against humanity and are responsible for the AMIA and the 1992 Israeli embassy bombings.
The court said that the AMIA bombing “was organized, planned, financed, and executed under the direction of the authorities of the Islamic State of Iran within the framework of Islamic jihad and with the main intervention of the political and military organization – Hezbollah.”