Posted on 03/08/2003 11:10:09 AM PST by knighthawk
BUENOS AIRES, March 8 (AFP) - An Argentine judge issued an international arrest warrant Friday for four Iranian officials suspected of involvement in the worst terrorist attack on Argentine soil, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charities building, which killed 85, a court spokesman said.
Federal Judge Juan Jose Galeano's warrant includes Iran's former intelligence and security minister Ali Fallahian; the former cultural attache at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires Moshen Rabbani; and Foreign Ministry diplomatic post official Barat Ali Balesh Abadi.
Galeano also upheld and reaffirmed an existing international arrest warrant, dating from August 9 1994 for Ali Akbar Parvaresh, an Iranian former official whose was fingered by an Iranian disident.
Explaining his 400-page ruling, Galeano cited "responsability in the attack on the AMIA (Argentine Jewish Mutual Association) of radical militant elements in the Islamic Republic of Iran."
If any of the suspects is detained abroad and sent to Argentina, the judge would question hm and could decide to try him, acquit him or declare the charges without merit.
The judge moved on the arrest warrant at the urging of prosecutors Jose Barbaccia and Alberto Nisman, who requested the detention of 17 suspects based on Argentine intelligence service reports, the court source added.
The intelligence reports found that in the days prior to the attack, there was an unusual movement of Iranian diplomats in and out of Argentina.
There were also many phone calls made between Buenos Aires, Iranian government offices and numbers in the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este, which has a large Arab community, on the Brazilian and Argentine border.
In January local media reported that Argentina's intelligence service would report to authorities that Iran and the Lebanese militant Shiite group Hezbollah masterminded the 1994 bombing of the AMIA.
"The government of Iran and armed units of the pro-Iranian armed group Hezbollah were behind the horror of July 18, 1994, that at 9:53 in the morning killed 85 people in Once, in downtown Buenos Aires," which injured another 200, the report leaked to the dailies Clarin and Pagina/12 charged, noting Galeano was to receive the report.
Argentina has one of the largest Jewish communities in the Americas, estimated at around 300,000.
An earlier anti-Jewish bombing, of the Israeli embassy here on March 17, 1992, killed another 29 people and left another 200 hurt. Authorities have never solved that crime.
The intelligence report marked the first time an official body drew a conclusion on the international leads in the worst terrorst attack in Argentina's history -- now almost nine years on.
The intelligence report, not yet public, according to the media reports named Iranian government officials and leaders of Hezbollah whom the intelligence report concludes gave the order to blow up the building housing the headquarters of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) charities umbrella group, on a busy downtown street.
The intelligence briefing also concludes the explosives used in the blast were brought into through the triple border area shared by Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, frequently named as an area where fundraising for Islamist militants takes place and where sleeper cells allegedly may be in place, the media reports said.
The report Galeano received also alleges Rabbani was the operational chief of the attack, which Tehran always has denied, media reports here have said.
Both blasts took place during the government of former president Carlos Menem, a son of Syrian immigrants, who was in power from 1989-1999.
In July 1992, Menem was directly linked to the AMIA strike when The New York Times published an allegation that Iran had paid him 10 million dollars, deposited in a Swiss bank account, purportedly to cover up Tehran's responsibility for the bombing.
At the time, Iran rejected any link to the 1994 bombing. Menem also denied the allegations against him, saying they were a bid to hurt him politically as he sought reelection.
Menem, who faced a swirl of corruption allegations and spent time under house arrest in 2001 for allowing illegal international arms sales, has said he does have a Swiss bank account. But he says it is a 1986 deposit of money the state paid him as a former political prisoner during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
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