Unidentified Argentine judicial sources reported on March 30 that federal judge Ariel Lijo has ordered former president Carlos SaĂșl Menem (1989-1999) to stand trial on charges that during his presidency he impeded the initial investigation into a July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires. The judge in charge of the original investigation, Juan JosĂ© Galeano, is also to stand trial, along with former intelligence service directors Hugo Anzorreguy and Juan Carlos Anchezar, and two commanders of the federal police.
The bombing, generally considered the worst anti-Semitic violence since World War II, killed at least 85 people and injured 300; Argentine prosecutors accuse the Iranian government of planning the attack and the Lebanese organization Hezbollah of carrying it out. Many Argentines suspected that Menem, a strong proponent of neoliberal economic measures and a favorite of the US government at the time, had interfered in the investigation to protect family friends, the late Syrian-Argentine business owner Alberto Kanoore Edul and his son, Alberto Jacinto Kanoore Edul. Alberto Jacinto is said to be linked to Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attachĂ© to Iran’s embassy in Buenos Aires who is suspected of masterminding the AMIA bombing.
Menem is now a senator for La Rioja province, and even if convicted he won’t face a prison sentence unless he is impeached by the Senate. (InfoBAE, Argentina, March 30; PĂĄgina 12, Argentina, March 31; BBC News, April 2) (Last September, Menem was acquitted in a corruption trial stemming from the illegal sale of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador when he was president; there were suspicions of political interference in that trial.)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, April 8.
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