ARGENTINA-IRAN: Tension Mounts over Probe into AMIA Bombing

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 10 2003 (IPS) - The already cool relations between Argentina and Iran have become even more chilly due to a dispute over the investigation into a 1994 bomb attack in the Argentine capital, in relation to which government officials in Buenos Aires summoned Iran’s top diplomat Monday.

The Argentine Foreign Ministry’s secretary of foreign relations, Fernando Petrella, met with Iran’s business attaché Mohammad Ali Tabatabaei Monday, who was asked to clarify remarks made by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.

On Sunday, Asefi said Iran would take ”appropriate measures” if Argentina failed to ”rectify its error” – a reference to an arrest order issued by an Argentine judge for four former Iranian diplomats last Friday.

The four are suspected by the Argentine courts of involvement in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), a Jewish community centre, in Buenos Aires.

Tabatabaei was summoned to clarify what the Iranian government meant by ”appropriate measures.”

Petrella told IPS that his meeting with Tabatabaei was ”very cordial,” but that he made it clear that the Argentine government ”is paying very close attention to the Iranian government’s statements” regarding the AMIA case, and that some of the remarks ”do not please us or seem wise.”

Tabatabaei said he would explain to the Argentine government the measures that Iran might adopt as soon as he received information on the matter, said Petrella.

”We knew there would be no immediate clarification of the remarks by the Foreign Ministry spokesman (Asefi), but we wanted to react swiftly,” the Foreign Ministry official added.

On Friday, a federal judge in Argentina, Juan José Galeano, issued an international arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, a former Iranian intelligence and security minister; Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires; Ali Balesh Abadi, a diplomat; and Ali Akbar Parvaresh, a former education minister and lawmaker.

Galeano’s detention order accused the four of ideological links to the July 1994 car bombing that destroyed the eight-story AMIA building, leaving 87 dead and more than 300 injured.

Argentina’s Jewish community is the biggest in Latin America.

The judge’s suspicions that ”radical elements” in the Iranian government were involved in the attack were based on earlier testimony by Iranian witnesses, one of whom maintained that former Argentine president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) was paid an 11- million-dollar bribe to cover up Iran’s participation.

Analysts said the judge’s 400-page arrest order was based more on intelligence reports and political analyses than on compelling evidence.

It heightened the tension between the two countries, which had reduced their diplomatic relations to the level of business attachés when the probe into the AMIA attack got under way in 1995, and Tehran and Buenos Aires both recalled their ambassadors.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Sunday that ”there has been no convincing evidence of Iran’s involvement in that incident, and we have repeatedly said that these rumours and reports are made up by Zionist circles.”

Families of victims of the AMIA bombing are sceptical that Galeano’s investigation will lead to a conviction. Adriana Reisfeld, whose sister Noemí was killed in the attack, told IPS that the arrest warrant would have made sense seven years ago, because the four Iranian diplomats have been suspects since the very start of the investigation, when they were still living in Argentina.

”We had those Iranian diplomats freely coming in and out of the country, without anyone arresting them. And only now do they order their arrest by Interpol, when they enjoy the protection of Iran, a country with which we have no extradition treaty,” said Reisfeld, a member of Active Memory, a group of relatives of AMIA victims.

The families have long complained of the sluggish pace of the investigation and certain irregularities.

Reisfeld argued that the arrest warrant contained several contradictions, and that the judge’s real intention was ”to put an end to the case and obtain international condemnation, knowing that he will not secure the extradition of the suspects.

”For the families, it is more important to move forward with respect to the ‘local connection’ in the attack,” explained Reisfeld.

She was referring to the oral arguments phase of the trial that opened in Buenos Aires in September 2001 against 20 Argentine nationals who reportedly built the car bomb used in the attack, which was allegedly planned in Iran by the Lebanese Islamic fundamentalist group Hizbollah.

Of the 20 suspects, 15 were police officers at the time AMIA was bombed.

”Argentina does not have the power of the United States or Israel to pressure another state…to try and convict those accused of an attack of these characteristics, which is why we at least want tough sentences for the Argentines who were involved,” stressed Reisfeld.

The trial against the 20 Argentine suspects is expected to conclude within just a few months, but investigators believe that those who face charges make up a mere 10 percent of those who took part in planning and staging the attack.

That is why the judge is investigating what is described in Argentina as the ”international connection”, and accepted the request by the office of the public prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for the four former Iranian Embassy officials.

Argentine Foreign Minister Carlos Ruckauf said Monday that ”this is not about a decision by one state with respect to another, but of an independent branch, the judiciary, which is seeking the detention of suspects,” and which is not accusing ”a state, but individuals.”