By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Sep 2 2004 (IPS)

After a nearly three-year trial, a court in Argentina Thursday acquitted five suspected accessories in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre, the worst terrorist attack in this country’s history.

Now it is the investigators who are in the dock.

In a controversial verdict, a panel of three federal judges absolved the five suspects who were seen as "the local connection" in the bombing of the seven-story Argentine Israeli Mutual Aid Association (AMIA) building, in which 86 people were killed and more than 200 injured on Jul. 18, 1994.

But the nationally televised legal decision ordered investigations of judges, prosecutors, a former police chief, government functionaries and lawmakers involved in the botched 10-year probe, which has led to no convictions.

Meanwhile, the legal investigation into the "international connection" continues. Argentine officials say the attack was carried out by the Lebanese Islamist movement Hizbullah with financial support from Iran, and the courts have issued warrants for the arrest of 10 former Iranian diplomats suspected of being the masterminds behind the bombing.

Iran has repeatedly denied any involvement.

It also acquitted the four former Buenos Aires provincial police officers – Juan José Ribelli, Raúl Ibarra, Mario Bareiro and Anastasio Leal – charged with acting as the middlemen between Telleldín and the "material authors" of the attack.

All five have been in prison for eight years.

Prosecutors and the families of the victims were seeking life sentences.

The ruling produced indignation and shock among the victims’ families and their lawyers, even though many of them had already expressed their fear that no one would be convicted.

AMIA lawyer Marta Nercellas told IPS that despite all of the flaws in the investigation, it was clearly proven that Telleldín equipped the van used in the attack.

She also pointed to a large quantity of evidence implicating former police commissioner Ribelli.

"He was never able to justify the 2.5 million dollar increase in his wealth since the day after the van was received from Telleldín," said Nercellas. "He argued that it was money from an inheritance and refused to provide any further explanation."

She also pointed out that Ribelli brought a number of witnesses to testify at the trial, who were later found to be false.

"For us, today is a day of mourning, because of the death of justice," said Sofía Guterman, the mother of Andrea Guterman, a young woman killed in the blast. "We feel very discouraged and we hold the state responsible for failing to investigate as it should."

During the administration of president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), many began to suspect complicity in a cover-up involving the government, the judge, prosecutors and even leaders of the Jewish community in Argentina, Latin America’s largest.

Guterman said the court ruled Thursday that the participation of the alleged accomplices was not clearly proven, due to the irregularities committed in the preliminary investigation, when evidence was collected and the groundwork was prepared for prosecution under federal Judge Juan José Galeano, who had already been removed from the case.

Laura Ginsberg, who lost her husband in the tragedy, said "We knew this was a fraudulent trial because it was built on an illegal preliminary investigation. We said so before the legal proceedings began three years ago, and no one listened to us."

The families and their attorneys said the extremely serious irregularities committed during the preliminary investigation – which they had already denounced, one by one – ruined the legal proceedings and made it impossible to hand down clear verdicts against the five defendants who were cleared of all major charges Thursday.

For example, it was alleged that Galeano had paid Telleldín a 400,000-dollar bribe to testify against the former police officers. The used car salesman’s testimony was thus invalidated, and the judge was removed from the case.

The roughly 100 irregularities that Galeano is accused of include the destruction and disappearance of evidence. He is under investigation by the Council of the Magistracy and the federal courts.

Thursday’s court verdict also ordered probes of the prosecutors and other judicial functionaries who worked with Galeano on the case.

In addition, the three-judge panel called for investigations of other magistrates involved in the case, Norberto Oyarbide and Gabriel Cavallo; Carlos Ruckauf and Carlos Corach, former interior ministers under Menem; SIDE chief Hugo Anzorregui; former secretary of security Andrés Antonietti; and former police chief Ramón Verón.

The verdict also identified at least seven legislators who were former members of the parliamentary "commission to monitor the investigation of the attacks". They are to be investigated on charges of giving false testimony.

The judges, who are to release a final, detailed version of their legal decision on Oct. 29, suggested a cover-up by the Menem administration, in which even a Jewish community leader, Rubén Beraja, was implicated. He is to be investigated as well.

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