A federal judge in Argentina has ordered 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of involvement in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires to be put on trial in abstentia.
The devastating attack, which left 85 people dead and hundreds more injured, 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.
The ten suspects facing trial are former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats for whom Argentina has issued international arrest warrants.
Since 2006 Argentina had sought the arrest of eight Iranians, including then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Bahramaie Rafsanjani, who died in 2017.
The list also 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.
Until March this year, Argentina's laws did not allow for suspects to be tried unless they were physically present. Thursday's ruling on trying them in absentia is the first of its kind.
It comes amid a new push in recent years for justice to be served over the attack, backed by President Javier Milei, a staunch ally of Israel.
In his ruling, Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas acknowledged the "exceptional" nature of the decision to send the case to court, over three decades after the deadly bombing and with the suspects all still at large.
The measure was adopted at the request of the AMIA Prosecutor's Office following the law change, which allows criminal proceedings to move forward when defendants evade justice.
Rafecas said that the defendants had been declared in contempt of court years ago, are fully informed of their legal situation and have never responded to repeated requests for extradition.
Trying the suspects in absentia, the judge argued, would allow the courts to "at least try to uncover the truth and reconstruct what happened."
Rafecas said his decision recognised “the material impossibility of having the defendants present and the nature of the crime against humanity under investigation.”
Therefore, he wrote, “it is essential to proceed … to prevent the perpetuation of impunity,’ he said.
Argentina is home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America, with some 300,000 members.
The July 1994 attack on the AMIA centre follows “a pattern of systematic and organised violence against an identifiable civilian population, in this case, the Argentine Jewish community,” said Rafecas.
No-one has ever been arrested over the attack.
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.
The list of those who have faced allegations related to the case and its investigation includes two former presidents, judges, two prosecutors, intelligence officers and several police officers.
In April 2024, a domestic court blamed Hezbollah for the attack, which it called a "crime against humanity," and labelled Iran a "terrorist state."
It found that the attack and another deadly bombing on the Israeli Embassy in 1992 – in which 29 were killed and 200 injured – were likely triggered by a decision by former president Carlos Menem to cancel three contracts with Iran for the supply of nuclear equipment and technology.
The court did not however manage to produce evidence of Iran's involvement. Tehran has persistently denied any involvement.
Detonation
On 18 July 1994, a truck drove into the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, AMIA) Jewish community centre.
Laden with explosives, it detonated in what would become the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Besides the 85 dead, more than 300 people were injured.
Last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled that the Argentine state is responsible for deficient prevention and investigation of the attack.
The IACHR was particularly critical of Argentina’s failure to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice.
The Costa Rica-based rights court accused the state of previously attempting to "cover up and obstruct the investigation," robbing victims and their loved ones of justice.
Several efforts have been made to go over the investigation and uncover the truth behind the attack.
In 2015, an investigation by a special AMIA investigative unit began to review the initial judicial process. It ended in 2019 with the determination that the state had been involved in a “cover-up" that resulted in light sentences for judicial officials and former Menem government officials.
The unit, however, did not identify the reasons why the attack took place.
In 2015, a special prosecutor appointed to probe the bombing, Alberto Nisman, gain national media coverage when he accused then-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of orchestrating another cover-up in exchange for oil and trade benefits via a controversial agreement with Tehran two years earlier.
Nisman was found dead under mysterious circumstances just as he was about to present his allegations before Congress.
Fernández de Kirchner’s so-called "Memorandum of Understanding," which would’ve seen Iranian officials questioned about the bombing outside of Argentina, never entered into force.
Argentina’s justice system dropped an obstruction probe against Fernández de Kirchner in 2021, but reopened it three years later. It remains active.
Menem was tried for a cover-up in the case, but later acquitted. He died in 2021.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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