ARGENTINA: Little Progress in 3-year-old Terror Probe

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 17 1997 (IPS) - Three years after the car bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AIMA) that left 86 people dead, investigators report little progress in their probe into the attack.

On July 18, 1994, a vehicle that had recently been delivered to the Buenos Aires police department following repairs, crashed into the entrance of the AIMA offices and a huge explosion shattered the building. Adjacent buildings were also destroyed.

The people killed by the explosion were inside the building, passersby or in shops on three sides of the AIMA offices; another 300 people were injured – many still traumatized by their experience. The bombing occurred two years after a similar attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires.

Several Argentine policemen have been charged with being involved in the crime, but the motives underlying the attack remain unknown. Investigators have attempted to reconstruct what happened between July 10, the day the police took possession of the vehicle that was later used in the car bombing, and the attack eight days later.

Similarly, the investigation into the Israeli embassy bombing, that killed 29 people, has made little headway. This week, one of the magistrates in the case who propounded a theory of implosion (rather than explosion) – roundly rejected by Israeli authorities – was forced to recuse himself by defense attorneys representing an aggrieved relative.

Judge Carlos Fayt was forced off the case after harassing a witness with questions concerning his Jewishness, trips to Israel and other issues which the victim’s survivors considered irrelevant.

meanwhile the government, which promised to leave no stone unturned in the investigation of both bombings, is under fire from the Jewish community for doing too little. Ruben Beraja, president of the Delegation of Israeli Associations in Argentina, says he will release a list of names of government officials, justice department operatives and police agents who refuse to collaborate with the investigation, and who sometimes actively obstruct justice.

Two years ago Beraja pointed to the involvement of Iran in supporting Hezbollah guerrillas – members of an Islamic fundamentalist group operating in southern Lebanon. However, Argentina’s Foreign Ministry refused to follow up with any investigation, apparantly fearing that it would rupture diplomatic ties between the two countries.

President carlos Menem himself has admitted there is “substantial evidence” of Iranian support in the bombing. However, in Beraja’s judgment, the president will not issue a condemnation of Teheran in the absence of legal proof.

Last year, 66 cassette tapes containing important wire-tap information ordered by the federal court judge, Juan Jose Galeano were stolen from the Police Department for Protecting Constitutional Order (PDPCO). AIMA lawyer, Luis Dobniewsky, also alleged that a “mischievous hand” removed batteries from a message machine belonging to Alberto Telleldin, the mechanic who worked on the car-bomb vehicle.

The eight members of PDPCO involved in the investigation have scant resources – they don’t even have money for gasoline. Nor do they have their own office, a fact which obliges them to conduct business in Galeano’s chambers.

Victims’ families have formed the organisation “Active Memory”which meets in front of the courthouse every Monday to demand justice. A spoesman for the grpoup says representatives asked for an audience with president Menem, but have not received a reply.

Among the “Active Memory” group is Sofia Guterman, a woman who lost her 28 year old daughter in the blast. She laments that the pain of losing her only child can never be eliminated and notes that while the wheels of justice grind slowly “they even complain when we come here on Mondays, wondering why we bother them with our megaphones.”

Rosa Serena is another victim of the attack on the Mutual Society. She despairs of the government’s shoddy investigation, and is anguished that the perpetrators of the crime were never punished.

Serena spent two years as a recluse trying to recover from the death of her five-year-old child who was ripped from her hands while strolling past the Mutual Society building. One of Serena’s hands is withered from the effects of the blast, although she uses the other to care for a child born shortly after that fateful July day.

She points out that “not only Jews died that day. The attack was against all Argentines.”