“We have Hezbollah cells on the Triple Border. But it is on the Bolivian border where we see the highest level of alert and security in the country, because there has been a memorandum signed by Bolivia and Iran,” Bullrich said in comments to La Nación. “That pact allowed the presence of Iranian members of the Quds forces, which are combatant forces and are integrated into Iran’s armed branches, in the territory. We are investigating whether there are people who do not speak Spanish yet have Bolivian passports.” (Voz Media)

Following years of closer ties, including security cooperation, Bolivia and Iran signed a formal defense pact in July 2023. The deal was said to include an Iranian pledge to provide Bolivia with drones for narcotics enforcement, but the terms were secretive, with both Argentina and the Bolivian opposition demanding clarity on the details. (ToI)

The new border security measures follow a development in two long-languishing terrorism cases in Argentina. On April 4, Argentina’s Federal Criminal Court of Cassation formally affirmed that the deadly attacks on Buenos Aires’ AMIA Jewish community center in 1994 and the Israeli embassy in 1992 were carried out by Hezbollah, with  the complicity of the Iranian government. The ruling also declared that both episodes should be considered “crimes against humanity,” thus placing them beyond the statute of limitations despite the lack of progress in these cases. The ruling also labeled Iran a “terrorist state.”

The court recalled that there are Interpol arrest warrants in connection with these cases for former Iranian intelligence minister Ali Fallahian, former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohsen Rezaee (also rendered Rezai), former IRGC Quds Force commander Ahmad Vadidi (also rendered Vahidi), former cultural affairs officer at the Iranian embassy in Argentina Moshen Rabbani, former diplomatic secretary Ahnmad Reza Ashgari, and alleged Hezbollah operatives Hussein Mounir Mouzannar, Salman Raouf Salman (AKA Samuel Salman El Reda), and Farouk Abdul Hay Omairi.

Tehran’s former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati and former Iranian ambassador Hadi Soleimpenpour are also suspected of involvement but have immunity from the issuance of Interpol warrants because they still hold public office. Three additional suspects are either dead or presumed dead—former Hezbollah foreign intelligence chief Imad Fayez Moughnieh (also rendered Mughniyeh), former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and alleged Hezbollah operative Alí Hussein Abdallah. (BA Times, JP)

Photo: Khamenei.ir via Wikimedia Commons

The indictment outlines El Reda’s immigration to Buenos Aires in the late 1980s and his relationships with individuals with ties to Hezbollah in South America, including financier Assad Ahmad Baraka.

The US cited phone calls from El Reda in early July 1994, just days prior to the attack, to IJO members operating in the area to plan the bombing. In 2007, El Reda allegedly began recruiting and training new IJO operatives to carry out future terrorist attacks; he was further linked in 2015 to IJO operative Mohammed Ghaleb Hamdar, who had been arrested in Peru the previous year.

The indictment charges El Reda with conspiracy to provide material support to Hezbollah, under 18 USC § 2339A, which criminalizes the providing of support to a terrorist organization. The government alleges El Reda knowingly “agree[d] to provide Hezbollah with … tangible and intangible property, training services, expert advice and assistance, and personnel (including himself).”

He also faces counts involving aiding and abetting the provision of military-type training from Hezbollah (18 USC § 2339D), with the government claiming El Reda was responsible for “one or more IJO operatives to receive training in the use of weapons and military tactics from other members of Hizbollah.”

Hezbollah, or the “Party of God,” is a Lebanese militant group that formed after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. It is a designated “terrorist organization” in the US, UK, and Israel, among others. It is said to be backed by the Iranian government.

El Reda is currently said to be based in Lebanon, and remains at large.

From Jurist, Dec. 21. Used with permission.

Photo: LoboEstepario

However, as Kirchner is currently a senator, the Argentine Congress will have to vote to strip her of her parliamentary immunity before she can be taken into custody. In order for the vote to go through, a two-thirds majority is needed. Such a vote has not yet been scheduled.

Bonadio’s order also ordered the arrest of two of Kirchner’s allies: Carlos Zanni, a legal advisor to the former president, and Luis D’Elia, leader of a political organization that was allied with Kirchner’s government. Additionally, Bonadio also ordered the house arrest of Hector Timerman, Kirchner’s former Foreign Minister. All three have been taken into custody.

The investigation into the bombing was reopened by Bonadio after special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor who publicly claimed that Kirchner conducted negotiations with Iran in secret to cover up the involvement of Iranian officials in the bombing, was found dead in January 2015, just five days after making the accusations and hours before he was scheduled to testify before Congress on his findings. Nisman was found in his Buenos Aries apartment with a .22 caliber pistol and a bullet casing next to his body. Although the preliminary investigation ruled the death a suicide, a later Argentine border police report stated that Nisman was attacked by two individuals who drugged him before killing him and staging the scene to make it appear as though he had killed himself.

Kirchner has responded to the order by calling it an outrageous judicial overreach.

Kirchner has faced numerous legal troubles since leaving office. In March, Bonadio ordered Kirchner to stand trial in a multi-billion dollar fraud case. Kirchner was indicted in December 2016 on allegations of corruption, in connection with the use of funds meant for public works. In February 2015, a judge dismissed the original criminal allegations against Kirchner for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center.

From Jurist, Dec. 8. Used with permission.

From Jurist, Feb. 26. Used with permission.

Note: At the time of his death, Nisman was investigating the deadly 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA). After his murder, protesters mobilized to demand an investigation of the possible role of then-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in covering up the involvement of Iranian agents in the 1994 attack.

That same day, Argentina's Congress approved a bill dissolving the Intelligence Secretariat, to be replaced by a new agency more accountable to the legislative branch. The proposal was drafted last month by Fernández following the death of Nisman—who she said had been fed false information by the spy service. Opposition lawmakers rejected the new law as an actual consolidation of power in the executive, noting that oversight of wiretaps will be moved from the intelligence agency to the prosecutor general's office. (BBC News, Feb. 26)

Also Feb. 26, Fernández announced a cabinet shake-up, with Wado de Pedro to replace Aníbal Fernández as secretary general of the presidency. Aníbal Fernández, in turn, is to replace Jorge Capitanich as chief of cabinet. Both Aníbal Fernández and Capitanich singled themselves out with inflammatory comments as the scandal broke over Fernández de Kirchner's indictment and Nisman's death. (MercoPress, Feb. 26)

One day before all this, opposition lawmaker Elisa Carrió accused Fernández de Kirchner of planning an "autogolpe," or self-coup—the term used in Latin America for a president's suspension of congress and the constitution and seizure of dictatorial powers. Carrió told a TV interviewer: "Where is all this going? A coup d'etat. By whom? By Cristina Kirchner." She called on the Organization of American States to take note. (La Nación, Feb. 25)

This is certinaly giving the Kirchneristas a taste of their own medicine. Throughout this affair, they've been making ugly noises accusing their accusers of arranging a "judicial coup." Whether or not they have their own "self-coup" planned, it is certainly an abuse of language to cynically invoke Argentina's fascist past to tar the healthy functioning of an independent judiciary! That's almost as good as accusing the massive Feb. 18 march demanding justice for Nisman (a Jew investigating a deadly terror attack on Jews) of being an "anti-Semitic outbreak." Another one to file under "Orwell would shit."

On the same day as the march, Foreign Minister Timerman held a press conference to announce that is sending a letter to both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman calling for the AMIA case to be "included" in current talks between Washington and Tehran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions. The letter said that this appeal had been issued before and received no response. The letter also made reference to the lack of progress on the 1992 suicide attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. 

"Argentina is greatly concerned about the increasing frequency with which many countries are used as scenarios in which other states get involved to define disputes according to their own geopolitical interests," the letter stated. "We are also concerned to see how propaganda mechanisms are used overtly or covertly for such purposes. My country rejects such acts and we don’t want them to happen in our territory."

The mention of "propaganda mechanisms" seems to be a reference to the opposition in Argentina. The local press have been emphasizing claims that Nisman had amassed evidence that Fernández and Timerman struck a secret deal with Tehran to cover up Iran's role in the bombing in exchange for guarantees of oil imports. 

After the initial investigation into the AMIA bombing ended without convictions, Nisman was appointed to reopen the case in 2006. He accused Iran of ordering the attack via Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, and requested arrest warrants for five Iranian officials including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Fernández was formally charged on Feb. 13. (Latin Post, Feb. 19; MercoPress, Feb. 18; Buenos Aires Herald, Feb. 17; DW, Feb. 15)

One figure sought for questioning in the case was Antonio "Jaime" Stiuso—former head of Argentina's Intelligence Secretariat who was fired by Fernández de Kirchner last year, and apparently went missing after the scandal broke. Prosecutors accompanied by intelligence agents weren't able to find Stiuso at three addresses registered to his name, current Intelligence Secretary Oscar Parrilli said Jan. 29. More than two weeks later, prosecutor Viviana Fein did confirm that she had debriefed Stiuso. While rights groups had accused Stiuso of spying on Fernández de Kirchner's political enemies, the Argentina press now speculates she fired him because he was cooperating with Nisman.

Fernández responded to the claims in an open letter Jan. 22, saying she believed that Nisman was fed false information and then murdered to tarnish her government. "They used him while alive and then needed him dead. It's that sad and terrible," she wrote. "The real operation against the government was the death of the prosecutor." (Buenos Aires Herald, Feb. 18; Bloomberg, Feb. 5; Globe & Mail, Jan. 30; NPR, Jan. 29)

Forsenic tests carried out by the Buenos Aires police have reportedly revealed that Nisman did not fire the gun that delivered the fatal shot, apparently putting a definitive end to a suicide theory in the case. Diego Lagomarsino, an IT specialist in Nisman's office, says he gave Nisman the .22 pistol to defend himself a few days before the killing. Lagomarsino said Nisman told him he feared attack by government supporters. (La Nación, Feb. 10; The Guardian, Jan. 31; IBT, Jan. 29)

Figures in the Fernández de Kirchner administration reacted to the protest mobilization by demonizing the organizers. The secretary of the office of the presidency, Aníbal Fernández, said the march had been called by "narcos," "cover-uppers" (encubridores) in the AMIA case, and  Cecilia Pando, a figure of the far-right opposition which actually had no visible presence at the demonstration. He also illogically characterized the protest as an "anti-Semitic outbreak." 

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, a close ally of Fernández de Kirchner, charged that her indictment constituted a "judicial coup." On Feb. 1, after newspaper Clarin reported Nisman's plans to indict Fernández de Kirchner, cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich angrily tore up a copy of the edition at a live press conference.

Waldo Wolff, vice president of the Delegation of Jewish Association of Argentina (DAIA), in turn, responded to the accusations by wryly inviting Aníbal Fernández to participate in the silent march, "with a hug." (La Jornada, Mexico, Feb. 15; InfoBAE, InfoBAE, Feb. 13; The Guardian, Feb. 3)

Timerman is himself of Jewish background, as was Nisman.

Nisman's body was found in his locked apartment by his mother and agents from his 10-member security detail after the prosecutor failed to answer phone calls; he was lying next to the .22-caliber handgun used to shoot him. Investigators initially suggested suicide, as did President Fernández in a Facebook posting on Jan. 20. But evidence emerged later that undercut the suicide hypothesis: Nisman had not appeared suicidal; there was no note; gunpowder traces weren't detected on Nisman's hands; a locksmith disputed claims that two entrances to the apartment were locked; and a previously unnoticed third entrance was discovered. Reversing her earlier position, Fernández wrote on Jan. 22 that the prosecutor had probably been murdered. (New York Times, Jan. 22, Jan. 23; InfoBAE, Jan. 22)

In October 2006 Nisman—who was appointed to head the AMIA inquiry by former president Néstor Kirchner, Fernández's late husband—formally charged the Lebanese organization Hezbollah with carrying out the AMIA bombing and the Iranian government with ordering it. In January 2013 Argentina and Iran signed an agreement for a joint investigation into the attack. Nisman opposed the deal, as did Jewish community leaders, who felt this would impede prosecution of the Iranian suspects. An Argentine appeals court ruled the agreement unconstitutional on May 15, 2014, although the government has appealed the decision.

In his Jan. 14 complaint, based in part on intercepted phone calls, Nisman accused the presidency and people close to Fernández of working to negate the charges against Iran in exchange for trade deals. In addition to President Fernández and Foreign Minister Timerman, Nisman named legislative deputy Andrés "Cuervo" Larroque; Luis D'Elía, a leader in the leftist Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) and the piquetero ("picketer") unemployed movement who is close to the government; Fernando Esteche, the leader of the far-left group Quebracho; Héctor Yrimia, a former prosecutor in the AMIA case; Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attaché to the Iranian embassy suspected of masterminding the bombing; and Jorge "Yussuf" Khalil, an Iranian community leader in Buenos Aires. The complaint included transcripts of phone conversations between D'Elía and Khalil. (Todo Noticias, Argentina, Jan. 15, Jan. 23; NYT, Jan. 22, from correspondents)

Fernández supporters noted that Nisman had close relations with the US embassy in Buenos Aires, according to US diplomatic cables released by the Wikileaks group in 2010, and that he followed advice from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Justice Department's Office of International Affairs (OIA). It seems that Nisman regularly notified the embassy in advance about his legal moves. A confidential diplomatic cable dated May 19, 2009, notes that Nisman advised the embassy of his request for the indictment of a new AMIA suspect the day before he submitted the request to the judge in the case, Rodolfo Canicoba Corra. (Buenos Aires Herald, Jan. 16)

In related news, at least 10 people were injured the night of Jan. 18-19 when a crowd chanting anti-Semitic slogans attacked a hostel in Lago Puelo in the southern province of Chubut, beating and robbing Israeli tourists. The hostel's owner, Sergio Polak, said the crowd also hurled rocks and Molotov bombs and fired shots. Attacks on the hostel "started in March or April last year," he said. "We connect it with the campaign going on for a while on the subject of Israeli tourism. They say [the guests] are Israeli soldiers." The attack reportedly went on for hours because the local police didn't have enough agents on hand. There were about 10 assailants, identified as neighbors of the hostel. Initially no one was arrested, but a local radio station reported later that the attackers were "at the disposition of justice." (La Nación, Argentina, Jan. 21, from Agencia DyN)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, January 25.

In May 2008 Nisman charged former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) with impeding the initial investigation during his presidency. In March 2012 federal judge Ariel Lijo ordered Menem to stand trial on the charges, along with the judge who headed the original investigation, Juan José Galeano; intelligence service directors Hugo Anzorreguy and Juan Carlos Anchezar; and two commanders of the federal police. The trial still hasn't taken place. Formerly an opponent of President Fernández, Menem is now a political ally and seems to be having a relatively easy time in the courts. He is also implicated in the government's clandestine sales of 6,500 tons of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995. In March 2013 an appeals court found him guilty of "aggravated smuggling," but he currently enjoys immunity as a senator for La Rioja province.

Menem was allied with the US government while he was president, and the US embassy was clearly upset when Nisman filed charges against him in the AMIA case. Nisman apologized for not giving the embassy advance warning, according to a May 27 confidential cable obtained by the Wikileaks group. Then-US ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne, now the ambassador to Mexico, complained in another confidential cable two days later that the Menem charges "could complicate international efforts to bring the Iranian indictees to justice." "Nisman may still be currying favor from the Casa Rosada [Argentina's presidential palace] with a view to a favorable judicial appointment in the future," Wayne claimed. The May 27 cable emphasized the US government's interest in keeping the investigation centered on Iran and away from Menem: "Legatt officers [legal attachés] have for the past two years recommended to Nisman that he focus on the perpetrators of the terrorist attack and not on the possible mishandling of the first investigation." (Buenos Aires Herald, Jan. 16)

Although never formally charged, another coverup suspect is Antonio Horacio Stiles, better known as "Jaime Stiusso" (or "Stiuso"), the director of operations for the federal Intelligence Service (SI) until Fernández replaced him in December. Stiusso entered intelligence work in 1972, serving under the highly repressive 1976-1983 military junta and then under all governments since the restoration of democracy. He is said to have been close to Nisman, and also to have worked closely with Israel's Mossad and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Stiusso seemed to have a great deal of power in the government. Then-justice minister Gustavo Beliz had to resign his post on July 25, 2004 after tangling with the intelligence director. Beliz went on television the same day to charge that Stiusso had "messed up" the AMIA investigation. Beliz also said Argentina's intelligence apparatus was a "black hole," a "parallel state" and a "secret police without any controls," and he described Stiusso as someone "the whole world fears because they say he's dangerous and can have you killed." (La Nación, Argentina, Dec. 18; El País, Madrid, Jan. 25)

Although the Iranian government would obviously have reasons to block the inquiry if Iranian officials were involved in the AMIA bombing, there have also been accusations against Israeli officials. In January 2014 former Israeli ambassador to Argentina Yitzhak Aviran (1993-2000) announced that his country had killed most of the perpetrators of the attack. "The vast majority of the guilty parties are in another world, and this is something we did," he said. Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman noted that Aviran's comments "would imply that Israel hid information from Argentine courts, blocking new evidence from appearing." Timerman demanded that Aviran tell Argentine prosecutors whether Israel had further information.

Some Argentines noted that suspect "suicides" like Nisman's are hardly unprecedented in the country. Claims of suicide have been questioned in at least five other cases, all of which took place during Menem's presidency or involved Menem or people close to him. In three of the cases, the victim was about to testify or was considering doing so.

Former Customs head Brig. Gen. Rodolfo Echegoyen (or Etchegoyen) was shot in the head in his studio in December 1990; as in the Nisman case, there were no traces of gunpowder on his hands. Echegoyen was reportedly investigating the Edcadassa company, owned by members of the Yoma family, former in-laws of then-president Menem. Postal magnate and former Menem associate Alfredo Yabrán was found dead of apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds in one of his country estates in May 1998; he was sought for questioning in the January 1997 murder of photojournalist José Luis Cabezas, who had been investigating Yabrán's business activities. Naval captain Horacio Pedro Estrada was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment in August 1998; again, no traces of gunpowder were found, and the right-handed Estrada was shot in the left side of his head. Estrada was reportedly considering testifying in the case of arms sales to Ecuador and Croatia. Also in August 1998, Marcelo Cattáneo was found hanging in an abandoned structure on a Buenos Aires university campus; he was charged with paying bribes in a corruption case involving the state-owned Banco Nacion bank and US computer giant IBM. His family expressed doubts about the suicide hypothesis. Lourdes di Natale, once a secretary to former Menem in-law Emir Yoma, supposedly fell or jumped to her death from her apartment balcony while drunk in March 2003, but no alcoholic beverage was found in her apartment and the amount of alcohol in her blood should have made her incapable of getting on the balcony. She was about to testify in the case of the smuggled arms. (Diario Uno, Argentina, June 18, 2012; Página 12, Jan. 20)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, January 25.

From Jurist, Jan. 15. Used with permission.