Damián Pachter, the former Buenos Aires Herald journalist who first broke news of special AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman's death on Twitter, gave testimony today before an Argentine prosecutor in Tel Aviv.
Pachter, now a presenter and journalist with Israel's i24 News, met Prosecutor Eduardo Taiano at the Argentine consulate in Tel Aviv to give evidence. He currently lives in self-imposed exile in Israel. The session lasted approximately five hours, according to reports.
Speaking a day earlier to reporters in Israel, Pachter said he would not reveal the source of his information on Nisman and denounced alleged persecution at the hands of the government of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. He has repeatedly said that he believes the AMIA special prosecutor was killed on the orders of Fernández de Kirchner.
According to a report by Infobae, Pachter handed Taiano a series of documents to prove that in May 2015, while living in Tel Aviv, his email account and social media accounts were hacked.
Eight minutes after midnight on January 18, 2015, Pachter posted on Twitter: “Prosecutor Alberto Nisman has been found in the bathroom of his home in Puerto Madero in a pool of blood. He wasn’t breathing. Medics are there.”
The post, which was made from his own personal account, quickly spread across social media. He did not inform his former employers of the news he had received before posting it.
Over the next few days, Pachter, who worked for the Herald's website at the time, went into hiding. He later said he was followed by intelligence agents in the immediate aftermath of the developments and, having been told that his life was in danger by an unnamed source, decided to flee the country, leaving his car at his workplace, packing a rucksack and gathering up what little money he had.
Fearing he would be murdered by the security services, Pachter notifed reporters from Infobae and Clarín of his decision to leave and gave interviews to both outlets from the airport. He fled to Tel Aviv, where he’s been living ever since.
Inexplicably, as people attempted to locate him and find out his whereabouts, the official Twitter account of the Casa Rosada released his personal flight itinerary on the social network. Pachter, speaking on Thursday, said he would ask Taiano to open an investigation into how this information was discovered and shared.
In his testimony this week, Pachter ratified these events but failed to add substantive evidence for the case, including the identity of his source, which he has kept to himself despite repeated questioning. According to a previous report by Noticias magazine, the prosecution suspects Pachter’s source is someone currently under investigation, although this information is unconfirmed.
- TIMES
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