Absentee trial for fugitive Iranian AMIA bombing suspects confirmed

An appeals court in Buenos Aires has confirmed that 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals accused of involvement in the deadly 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre will stand trial in absentia.

The Buenos Aires City Federal Appeals Court on Tuesday confirmed the trial in absentia of the suspects for whom international arrest warrants have been issued for the attack on the AMIA Jewish community centre.

The ruling, to which the Noticias Argentinas news agency had access, was confirmed by judges Martín Irurzun and Mariano Llorens.

The court has therefore ratified the decision of Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas, who said the accused should stand trial on charges of planning and carrying the attack on July 18, 1994, which left 85 dead and over 300 injured. 

With this ruling, the indicted Iranians and Lebanese may face trial without need for their physical presence in this country – an unprecedented move for the Argentine court system.

Until March this year, Argentina's laws did not allow for suspects to be tried unless they were physically present.

Since 2006 Argentina had sought the arrest of eight Iranians, including then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Bahramaie Rafsanjani, who died in 2017.

The list includes, among others, Ali Fallahijan, former Intelligence & Security minister of Iran between 1989 and 1997; former foreign minister of Iran Ali Akbar Velayati; Mohsen Rezai, the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps between 1993 and 1994; and Hadi Soleimanpour, Tehran’s ex-ambassador in Buenos Aires.

Also named were former Al Quds commander Ahmad Vahidi; Iranian diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari; ex-cultural attache at the Iranian Embassy in Argentina, Mohsen Rabbani; and Hezbollah members Salman Raouf Salman, Abdallah Salman and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar.

Iran has always denied any involvement and refused to arrest and hand over suspects.

On the basis of this latest resolution, the Unidad Fiscal AMIA prosecutors will now have to formally request the magistrate that the case proceed to an oral and public trial.

The destruction of the Jewish community centre was the biggest terrorist attack in Argentine history. 

The devastating attack has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group of carrying it out at Iran's request.

According to prosecutors, the attack was planned by senior officials of the Iranian regime and carried out with the logistical and operational support of Hezbollah and its contacts in Argentina and in the Triple Frontier area.

The decades-long investigation into the terror attack has been marred by allegations of evidence and witness tampering, cover-up schemes and annulled trials. 

In April 2024, a domestic court blamed Hezbollah for the attack, which it called a "crime against humanity," and labelled Iran a "terrorist state."

After decades of investigation and multiple delays, the appeals court ruling opens the door to a trial in absentia against the accused for the first time.

– TIMES/NA