Buenos Aires attack in 1994

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In the bombing of the AMIA building on July 18, 1994 in Buenos Aires , 85 people were killed and another 300 injured. It was the worst bomb attack in Argentina's history . The building of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina , a headquarters of the Jewish community in Argentina, in which numerous Jewish organizations and associations were represented, was completely destroyed. The attack triggered the most comprehensive preliminary investigation in Argentine legal history . The assassin, the 21-year-old Lebanese Ibrahim Hussein Berro, could only be identified in November 2005 after extensive DNA tests. The background to the attack has never been clarified.

Memorial to the victims of the AMIA attack ( Monumento en Homenaje a las víctimas del Atentado a la AMIA )

Background and speculation

At 9:53 a.m. local time, a 300 to 400 kg bomb based on an ANC explosive exploded , which was transported in a Renault van by the attacker in front of the building and detonated. Hezbollah and Iran are presumed to be the originators and clients ; According to Wikileaks , the investigations into the authorship are said to have been influenced by the US embassy and "are not based on evidence found in Argentina itself, but on information from the US and Israeli intelligence services".

Hezbollah as the originator

Various sources and analysts suspected that Hezbollah's revenge for the killing of Abbas al-Musawi or "retaliation" for the kidnapping of Mustafa Dirani and air strikes in the Bekaa plain was suspected of being a possible motive for Hezbollah . Musawi's death was "avenged" in a confessional video with the 1992 attack in Buenos Aires . In a 2006 indictment by the Argentine special investigator, the latter reiterated that the assassin Hussein Berro was a member of Hezbollah.

Iran as the originator

Against the background of the unilateral termination of Argentine support for the Iranian nuclear program in 1993, a "retaliatory attack" by Iran was accepted as the motive. Accordingly, Iran had commissioned Hezbollah to carry out the attack. Argentina supported the Iranian nuclear program from the 1980s to 1993, and in February 1993 it supplied 115.8 kg uranium enriched to 20% to Iran.

At a secret meeting of the Iranian Security Council in Mashhad on August 14, 1993, the decision to launch an attack was said to have been made. The Los Angeles Times , in its December 6, 1997 issue, reports that an Iranian defector named Manouchehr Moatamer gave this information. The former US ambassador to Argentina, James Richard Cheek , considers Manouchehr Moatamer to be untrustworthy. There is no proof of Iranian responsibility. Another informant, Abdolghassem Mesbahi , key witness (C) in the Mykonos trial , also reports on the meeting in Mashhad, but only from hearsay. For Gareth Porter, the assumptions for Iranian authorship were based solely on members of the People's Mujahedin . In January 2014, Itzhak Aviran, Israel's acting ambassador to Argentina from 1993 to 2000, stated in an interview printed by the Clarín newspaper that Israel knew who were primarily responsible (Iranians) and had now killed most of them. The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected Aviran's statements as “complete nonsense”.

Negotiations between Argentina and Iran to resume Argentine support for the Iranian nuclear program were resumed with the help of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2007.

In February 2013, representatives of Argentina and Iran signed an agreement to investigate the AMIA attack , known as the "truth commission" and criticized by the special prosecutor Alberto Nisman as an attempt to cover up.

Argentine authorship

A trial of former Buenos Aires Province police officers for involvement in the preparations for the attack resulted in an acquittal of all 22 accused in September 2004. One defendant was accused of "having received US $ 400,000 from Side, the Argentine secret service, to use his testimony to direct suspicion of Iran." It was suspected that "people in the army and police who were involved in the military dictatorship of 1976." until 1984 (sic) were involved and are markedly anti-Semitic, ”or with“ Argentine Nazis ”.

Request for arrest

On November 9, 2006, the Argentine authorities, based on the results of the investigation by special investigators Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martinez Burgos, requested Interpol to issue a “ Red Notice ” (request for arrest) against nine people, which occurred in March 2007 after examining the documents , was reduced to six people:

The Red Notices were not issued - contrary to requests - for the former President of Iran, Akbar Hāschemi Rafsanjāni , for the former Foreign Minister of Iran Ali Akbar Velayati and the former Ambassador of Iran in Buenos Aires, Hadi Soleimanpour .

In May 2009 the Argentine authorities requested another Red Notice from Interpol . The Colombian Samuel Salman El Reda is said to be involved in the attack. In October 2009, the Argentine Federal Judge Ariel Lijo indictment at the time of the attacks officiating and descendants of Syrian parents Argentine President Carlos Menem , his brother Munir Menem , the former head of the Argentine intelligence Secretaría de Inteligencia de Estado (SIDE) Hugo Anzorreguy against the then investigating federal judge Juan José Galeano and other government employees charged for obstructing the investigation. The accused are said to have forged files, destroyed them and bribed witnesses.

Accusation of thwarting punishment, arrest warrant against Cristina Kirchner and legal proceedings

In January 2015, Alberto Nisman , appointed by Néstor Kirchner as special prosecutor and successor to Juan José Galeano in this case, indicted the then incumbent President of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner ; he accused her of sabotaging the pursuit of the prime suspects. The day Nisman was due to present his charges in the Buenos Aires Parliament , he was found dead in his apartment with a bullet wound to the head. The Argentine public prosecutor's office is now assuming murder instead of suicide .

The public prosecutor who followed Nisman, Gerardo Pollicita, evaluated Nisman's indictment and on February 13, 2015 brought charges against Cristina Kirchner for obstruction of punishment in office. Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman and MP Andrés Larroque were also accused of helping Kirchner cover up the alleged bombers.

An arrest warrant against Cristina Kirchner for allegedly covering up the attack was issued in December 2017, almost two years after her presidency ended. Since she was given a seat in the Senate in the parliamentary elections in October 2017 and is protected from criminal prosecution, the judge responsible, Claudio Bonadío, called for her parliamentary immunity to be lifted.

On February 28, 2019, former examining magistrate Juan José Galeano was sentenced to six years in prison for embezzlement, neglect of duty, deprivation of liberty , cover-up and manipulation of evidence. Former intelligence chief Hugo Anzorreguy was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. The court found her guilty of not seriously following the so-called "Syrian trail" leading to Alberto Kanoore Edul, a businessman of Syrian descent and a friend of Menem. Alberto Kanoore Edul is suspected of having obtained the materials for building the bomb. Instead, Galeano and Anzorreguy left the ranks of the police to look for guilty parties and thus the investigation came to nothing. After the attack, Galeano paid the used car dealer who sold the car the bomb detonated $ 400,000 for falsely accusing police officers. The used car dealer was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Carlos Menem was acquitted of the charge of having ordered the action to protect the perpetrators.

See also

Web links

Commons : Buenos Aires attack 1994  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Argentina compensates victims from 1994 , Deutsche Welle, April 30, 2015, accessed on July 18, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b Michael Studemund-Halévy: Handbook of Antisemitism - Anti-Semitism in Past and Present . Events, decrees, controversies. Ed .: Wolfgang Benz. tape 4 . De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-598-24076-8 , pp. 1 f .
  3. ↑ a b c d Peter Chalk: Encyclopedia of Terrorism , ABC-Clio Inc, 2012, ISBN 978-031330-895-6 , pp. 375-378
  4. ^ Buenos Aires bomber identified. In: bbc.co.uk , accessed August 5, 2013
  5. ↑ Identificaron al terrorista suicida que Voló la AMIA. In: lanacion.com.ar , accessed August 5, 2013
  6. ↑ Cable 05/22/2008. In: Wikileaks , accessed August 5, 2013
  7. ↑ Kiraz Janicke: Argentina: WikiLeaks reveals US interference in bombing case. In: greenleft.org.au , March 12, 2011, accessed August 5, 2013
  8. ^ A b Ignacio Klich: Coordinates of the Argentine foreign policy. In: monde-diplomatique.de , March 9, 2007, accessed on January 26, 2015
  9. ↑ Hezbollah is said to be responsible for attack on Jewish center. In: spiegel.de , accessed on January 26, 2015
  10. ↑ Acusan a Irán por el ataque a la AMIA. October 26, 2006, Retrieved July 23, 2019 (Spanish).
  11. ↑ Acusan a Irán por el ataque a la AMIA. October 26, 2006, Retrieved July 23, 2019 (Spanish).
  12. ↑ Acusan a Irán por el ataque a la AMIA. October 26, 2006, Retrieved July 23, 2019 (Spanish).
  13. ↑ Linette Lopez: Bombshell report alleges Argentina, Iran, and Venezuela were once all bound together by sex, drugs, and nuclear secrets. Retrieved July 23, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Christina Walrond: Timeline 1967–1993: Argentine Low-Enriched Uranium at Teheran Research Reactor. In: isisnucleariran.org , October 7, 2009, accessed on January 25, 2015 (PDF; 101 kB).
  15. ↑ Sebastian Rotella: Trail Heats Up in '94 Argentina Bombing. In: latimes.com , December 6, 1997, accessed January 25, 2015.
  16. ↑ Gareth Porter: Bush's Iran / Argentina Terror Frame-Up. In: thenation.com , January 19, 2008, accessed January 25, 2015.
  17. ↑ hagalil.com (accessed January 25, 2015).
  18. ↑ Gareth Porter: Indictment of Iran for '94 Terror Bombing Relied on MEK. In: ipsnews.net , August 7, 2013, accessed January 25, 2015.
  19. ↑ Ex-Ambassador: Assassins from Buenos Aires were killed. In: Handelsblatt , January 4, 2014
  20. ↑ Linette Lopez: Bombshell report alleges Argentina, Iran, and Venezuela were once all bound together by sex, drugs, and nuclear secrets. Retrieved July 23, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Argentina has signed an agreement with Iran to investigate the AMIA attack in 1994. In: IRIB , February 19, 2013, accessed August 5, 2013
  22. ↑ Argentina wants to reopen the investigation. In: sueddeutsche.de , February 25, 2013, accessed on August 5, 2013
  23. ^ President Kirchner's prosecutor dead. In: taz , January 19, 2015.
  24. ↑ Cristina Kirchner's commission. In: Jungle World , February 21, 2013.
  25. ^ Matthias Rüb: The track to Qom. In: faz.net , January 26, 2015, accessed January 27, 2015
  26. ↑ tageblatt.com.ar ( Memento from November 1, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed January 26, 2015)
  27. ↑ Who carried out the bloody attack on the Jewish-Argentine community? In: zeit.de , accessed on January 26, 2015
  28. ↑ interpol.int ( memento of October 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) INTERPOL Executive Committee takes decision on AMIA Red Notice dispute (accessed on August 5, 2013)
  29. ↑ CON. RES. 156. In: govtrack.us , July 20, 2009, accessed August 6, 2013
  30. ↑ interpol.int ( Memento from August 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) EL REDA, SAMUEL SALMAN (accessed on August 6, 2013)
  31. ↑ Mysterious death: Prosecutor of the Argentine President found dead. In: spiegel.de , accessed on January 19, 2015
  32. ↑ a b Investigations in Argentina: arrest warrant for ex-President Kirchner. In: tagesschau.de , December 7, 2017, accessed December 7, 2017.
  33. ^ Public prosecutor accuses Kirchner. In: sueddeutsche.de . February 13, 2015, accessed February 14, 2015 .
  34. ↑ Argentina: absuelven al expresidente Carlos Menem por el caso de la AMIA , France24, March 1, 2019, accessed on March 4, 2019.
  35. ^ Prison sentences after attack on Jewish center , Deutsche Welle, March 1, 2019, accessed on March 4, 2019.