ARGENTINA: Demonstrators speak out against call for the arrest of Iranian officials in bombing of Jewish cultural centre in Argentina in 1994

Members of the Islamic community and leftist protesters demonstrated outside the federal courthouse in Buenos Aires on Friday (November 3) to express their outrage over the a recent call for the arrest of several Iranian leaders for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural centre. On October 25, Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman announced that he planned to pursue the arrest of arrest of a former Iranian president, seven former government officials, and several employees of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires for the attack left 85 dead. The judge overseeing the case, Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, now must decide whether to issue the international arrest warrants requested by Nisman. Protesters gathered in front of the courthouse in Buenos Aires urged Canicoba Corral to reject Nisman's request. Canicoba Corral said he will announce he will make a decision on the case sometime next week. Local Sheik Abdala Madani grouped Nisman with a former Argentina judge who was presiding over the case and removed because of irregularities. "As Argentines, we are ashamed about these kinds of prosecutors and these types of judges and we ask Judge Canicoba Corral that he not let himself be cheated by this kind of this demon, this prosecutor (Nisman) who belongs to a group that includes Judge Galeano and other prosecutors who have had their posts taken away," Madani said. No one has been charged in the case, but Argentine, Jewish, and U.S. authorities have long linked the bombing to Iran and Hezbollah. Iranian authorities have repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks. Members of the local Islamic community have spoken out against the attack, saying it has been unjustly used to tarnish the reputation of Argentina's significant Islamic population. "You (Judge Canicoba Corral) know that Iran, Hezbollah and the Islamic community in Argentina are far removed from this terrible genocide that was committed here because it was an attack against all citizens," Madani continued. Nisman said former Iranian officials ordered Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas to carry out the attack during a 1993 meeting in the Iranian city of Mashhad, implicating ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as one of those responsible for giving the order. Rafsanjani was president of Iran from 1989 to 1997. Nisman has been heading an extensive investigation since an earlier probe into the attacks was deemed botched and thrown out. Court documents released on October 25 linked the attack to Argentina's unilateral decision to stop providing Iran with nuclear technology and materials. The attack on the AMIA centre came two years after a bomb destroyed Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people, in another case that Argentine courts never resolved.

ITN Source | November 4, 2006

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