Cry for Alberto Nisman and for Argentina
ALBERTO Nisman, the Argentinian chief prosecutor in a high profile terrorist bombing in Buenos Aires, was found dead this week in his apartment. He was a brave man who courageously blew the whistle on corruption in the Argentinian justice system.
Nisman, aged 51, died on Sunday night, hours before he was due to give testimony the next day to a commission of the Argentinian Congress concerning a high profile bombing case.
He was due to explain his allegations of an ongoing obstruction of justice and cover-up by politicians and officials, including President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner and the foreign minister, Hector Timmerman.
The death presented as suicide: Nisman was found on the floor of his 13th storey apartment in Buenos Aires, in the bathroom against the door, with a .22 calibre pistol and empty shell casing nearby. Documentation for the evidence he was due to present at the Congress was prepared and on his desk. The 10 bodyguards assigned to him by the Argentinian Federal Police were not on duty. His violent death seems suspiciously convenient, part of an ongoing conspiracy in Argentina and beyond to protect participants and beneficiaries from the bombing.
The bombing occurred on July 18, 1994 when a 275kg shaped charge (a directional bomb) made of fertiliser and fuel oil was detonated in front of the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Centre. It destroyed the building, killing 85 people and injuring 300.
The investigation, named after the century-old community centre, the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association, has been futile, dogged by incompetence, controversy and alleged cover-up.
The bombing and its aftermath continues to demonstrate the extraordinary power of global terrorist networks when leveraged by collusion with corrupt officials in Latin America. It brings mafia-style executions, smuggling and bribery together with state-sponsored political violence involving diplomatic protection and public bombings. The triple frontier area located at the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, where poor law enforcement facilitates smuggling of weapons, money and people, is notorious.
The dominant illicit network there is Hezbollah, a paramilitary agency of Iran supported by elements of the local populations from the Middle East. Based in Lebanon and currently fighting highly effectively with Iranian forces in Syria for the regime of Bashar Assad, Hezbollah is the most powerful paramilitary and terrorism organisation in the world.
Responsibility for the AMIA bombing was claimed by the Islamic Jihad, which operates under the umbrella of Iran and in alignment with Hezbollah. However, Ibrahim Hussein Berro is honoured by a plaque in southern Lebanon as a Hezbollah martyr for his death on the day of the AMIA bombing and is believed to be the suicide bomber responsible.
This was one of a series of similar attacks in 1994 against Jewish and Israeli civilian targets from London to Panama.
Nestor Kirchner became Argentinian President and in 2005 he described the decade of unresolved AMIA investigation as a "national disgrace" and took steps to invigorate it, including sacking the presiding investigator and removing obstacles to the giving of evidence. In 2006, formal charges were laid against five members of the Iranian government and one member of Hezbollah and red notices were issued on Argentinian request by Interpol in 2007 seeking international cooperation in their arrests. As yet, no one has been arrested but some of the fugitives have risen to high political office in Iran.
Carlos Menem, President of Argentina 1983-89, seems to have actively obstructed the Argentinian investigation. Menem, who is of Syrian extraction, was investigated multiple times for corruption and fled to Chile to avoid arrest between 2001 and 2004 but ultimately returned and was convicted on weapons smuggling charges in 2013.
In 2006, Menem was found also to have controlled a secret Liechtenstein bank account and, in 2012, was charged with obstruction of justice concerning investigation of the AMIA bombing, in connection with which the secret bank account is suspected of having laundered $6 million to $10 million from Iran.
Current President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner (elected in 2010), the widow of Nestor Kirchner, devised an alternative track to the criminal investigations that was also to facilitate lucrative trade of Iranian oil for Argentinian wheat.
Accordingly, a deal to establish a joint truth commission to consider the AMIA bombing was agreed with Iran in January 2013 but challenged in the Supreme Court of Argentina, where it was found to be illegal.
Nisman's death highlights an outstanding example of transnational organised crime: global terrorism ordered by official Iranian operators and protected by corrupt Argentinian officials.
Its clear consequence is paralysis in the law. Perhaps Nisman would have preferred us not to cry for him but for the murder of justice in Argentina.
Gregory Rose is a professor in the School of Law, University of Wollongong.
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