BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, was charged Friday for allegedly trying to hide Iran’s involvement in a deadly 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires.
Federal prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita presented a 61-page complaint before the No. 3 Federal Criminal and Correction Court of Justice Daniel Rafecas, according to a copy published by La Nacion.
Pollicita took the step after taking over the case from Alberto Nisman, who was found dead from a gunshot to his head last month only four days after accusing the president of the same cover-up.
Nisman, whose accusation and death have raised public clamor for justice and a clampdown on state corruption, alleged that Fernandez de Kirchner used a 2013 memorandum of understanding with Iran to try to hide the Republic’s alleged involvement in the bombing of a Jewish community. The attack, the deadliest in Argentina, killed 85 people and the culprits still have not been brought to justice.
Nisman alleged the president sought the cover-up to help rebuild commercial ties with Iran, including to swap energy supplies for grains.
Fernandez de Kirchner, other officials and supporters accused of the cover-up have denied any wrongdoing and lashed out at the charges as absurd and baseless.
In his complaint, Pollicita also charged the president’s foreign minister, Hector Timerman, and Andres Larroque, a ruling party congressman and head of the La Campora militant organization of supporting the president. Others charged include former official and activist Luis D’Elia and Fernando Esteche, head of the nationalist Quebracho political organization.
With the charges, Pollicita said next would come an investigation to find out what happened and to “criminally reprimand those responsible.”
After Nisman made his accusations last month, he was found shot dead in his apartment, a case that remains unresolved. He was due to testify before Congress the day after his death.
Ahead of these latest charges, the president’s general secretary, Anibal Fernandez, said such a move would be “a maneuver of democratic destabilization.”
He added that the charges have no judicial basis and would serve only to provoke “din.”
A mass demonstration is planned Feb. 18 in Buenos Aires and across the country to pay homage to Nisman and demand justice for his death, and for those who died in the 1994 bombing.
