According to the justice of Argentina The attacks on the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the Israeli investment fund AMIA in 1994, which claimed hundreds of lives, were ordered by Iran.
With around 300,000 people, Argentina’s Jewish community is the largest in Latin America.
The neighboring country suffered two serious attacks, both in Buenos Aires. The first attack in 1992 against the headquarters of the Israeli Embassy claimed 29 lives, the second attack in 1994 against the building of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), the worst in the history of this country, claimed another 85 lives.
The comings and goings in legal treatment
In 2006, Argentine prosecutors accused the pro-Iranian group Hezbollah of carrying out the AMIA attack and Iranian officials of ordering it, which Tehran denies. No arrests were made in this still-unsolved case and the motives for the attack remained unclear. Iran denies any involvement.
The judicial investigation believes that the main suspects in the attack were members of the then Iranian government, including former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani. However, the case was marked by complaints of lane tampering, convictions for cover-ups and annulled trials.
A trial into the attack on the AMIA ended in 2019 with light sentences for judicial officials and the government of former President Carlos Menem (1989-99), which was found guilty of “covering up” the attack, but without identifying the reason for the concealment of evidence or the deviation from the investigation through the cover-ups.
Case update
Now the text responsible for the Federal Criminal Chamber II also pointed to the Shiite movement Hezbollah as the perpetrator, declared Iran a “terrorist state” and described the attack on the AMIA as a “crime against humanity,” according to the document quoted by the press.
“Hezbollah carried out an operation that corresponded to a political, ideological, revolutionary plan and was under the mandate of a government, a state,” Judge Carlos Mahiques, one of the three signatory judges, told Radio Con Vos, referring to the Iran.
The verdict “is historic, unique in Argentina, they owed it not only to Argentina, but also to the victims,” Jorge Knoblovitz, president of the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations, told Argentine broadcaster LN+. Furthermore, “it opens the possibility of a lawsuit before the International Criminal Court, since it has been clearly established that the State of Iran is a terrorist state,” he added.
The other mistake
However, the decision of judges Mahiques, Ángela Ledesma and Diego Barroetaveña came within the framework of a parallel ruling, also this Thursday, which examines the case of irregularities committed during the investigation.
It confirms the acquittal of Carlos Telleldín, the first person arrested for the AMIA attack, as well as the convictions for irregularities in the investigation, and reduces some sentences, including that of the former judge Juan José Galeano, who was the first to deal with the investigation concerned. which fell from six to four years.
This 711-page parallel judgment examines the geopolitical context of both attacks and finds that their motivation, although not the only one, was in response to the foreign policy of then-President Carlos Menem (1989-1999).
AFP.