Posted on 11/09/2006 2:56:06 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
A federal judge Thursday ordered the detention of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed 85 people, the judge's office said.
A special prosecutor sought the order, alleging that the worst terrorist attack on Argentine soil was orchestrated by leaders of the Iranian government and entrusted to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah.
Iran's leading diplomatic envoy in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Baharvand, told The Associated Press that his government would oppose any efforts to detain Rafsanjani or other Iranian nationals. Baharvand, Iran's charge d'affaires, said the case was politically motivated.
An official in the office of Federal Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, who spoke with the AP on condition of not being identified, said the judge was seeking the detention of Rafsanjani and eight others. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with traditional court practice here in such cases.
The July 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural center here killed 85 people and injured more than 200 others. Investigators say an explosives-packed van was driven up to the building and detonated.
Iran's government has vehemently denied any involvement in the attack following repeated accusations by the Jewish community and other leaders here.
Baharvand called the effort a "huge propaganda" campaign against his country, adding Iran was "a scapegoat for the shortcomings of the countries that are not able to find the real perpetrators of this act."
"These are baseless allegations against my country," he added.
Two special prosecutors on Oct. 25 urged Canicoba Corral to seek international and national arrest orders for Rafsanjani, who was Iran's president between 1989 and 1997 and is now the head of the Expediency Council, which mediates between parliament and the clerics in ruling the country.
Alberto Nisman, the lead prosecutor, said last month that the decision to attack the center "was undertaken in 1993 by the highest authorities" of the Iranian government at the time, and that the actual attack was entrusted to Hezbollah.
Nisman also asked Canicoba Corral to detain several other former Iranian officials, including former intelligence chief Ali Fallahijan, former Foreign Minister Ali Ar Velayati, two former commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, two former Iranian diplomats and a former Hezbollah security chief for external affairs.
A botched investigation into the case by Judge Juan Jose Galeano was halted in 2004 by federal courts and a special investigation unit was created. Galeano was removed from the case and later stripped of his judgeship.
Nisman said in November 2005 that investigators believed a 21-year-old Lebanese Hezbollah militant had been identified as the suicide bomber.
The attack on the seven-story Jewish center, symbol of a Jewish population numbering more than 200,000, was the second of two attacks targeting Jews in Argentina during the 1990s.
A March 1992 blast destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people in a case that has also been blamed on Hezbollah.
Some speculated the bombing was inspired by Argentina's support for the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. Others said Argentina's Jewish community, one of the largest in Latin America, represented an obvious target for Israel's opponents.
Although Jewish community leaders and others have suspected the involvement of Middle East terrorists, a lack of progress in tracking down the masterminds has made families of the victims increasingly bitter.
Israeli Ambassador Rafael Eldad told the independent news agency Diarios y Noticias that the judge's step was a "very significant" development and expressed hope it would help resolve the case.
Unless Jimmy Carter is president of Iran, I would imagine the Iranians to declare this an act of war.
A nation with spine.
This could become interesting. Charge those people with the 85 murders in a public court and hold them in cells. Argentina learned how to deal with this sort of people. Fairly recently.
Maybe now, but NOT then:
......After a seven-year investigation by federal judge Juan Jose Galeano, the case went to trial in September 2001. Relatives of the victims have harshly criticized Galeano's handling of the investigation.
Galeano interviewed Mesbahi on two occasions in Mexico City, in July 1998 and May 2000. He kept the contents of the interviews a secret, but last year had to release copies to the three-judge panel overseeing the trial.......
According to his deposition, Mesbahi defected from the Iranian secret service in 1996 and placed himself under German protection. He reportedly helped Germany solve the murder of five Iranian dissidents at a Berlin restaurant.
In his testimony, Mesbahi described an extensive Iranian intelligence network in South America. The network's main task was gunrunning and influencing Muslims in the region.
Mesbahi said Buenos Aires was the regional headquarters for the organization and that the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires provided support for a cell that bombed the Israeli Embassy here on March 17, 1992, killing 28 people.
The same happened with the bombing of the AMIA community center, Mesbahi said.
After each bombing, Iran sent commercial missions to Buenos Aires and trade increased exponentially, Mesbahi told investigators.
Iran became a model customer, purchasing massive amounts of commodities and leather products, never complaining about exorbitant prices or asking for reciprocal purchases of Iranian produce.
It was not the only payoff, said Mesbahi, who claimed that Menem received Iranian financial support during his 1989 campaign for president, and after the 1994 bombing received a further $10 million in a Swiss bank account.
The Iranians were interested in Menem, who is of Syrian ancestry, because they believed he shared their dislike of Jews and Israel and would be sympathetic to Iranian interests, the Times said.
Menem denied receiving money from Iran and called the allegations "absurd and politically motivated."
He also said Tuesday that he had instructed his lawyers to sue the Times for "libel and slanderous publication."
An Iranian official called the Times report "a journalistic fairy tale" concocted by Zionists.
Mesbahi also claimed that an Argentine presidential aide visited Iran four times after the AMIA bombing to brief the government on the pace of the investigation.
One of the suspects being tried, Carlos Alberto Telleldin, claimed that in 1995 another presidential aide visited him in prison and offered him $2 million to blame the attack on a group of Lebanese immigrants then being held in neighboring Paraguay.
Remarkably, Galeano did nothing with this volatile testimony.
With the story again in the news, the community is reacting angrily.
"It's time that Menem's personal involvement in the case was probed," said Sergio Widder, the Latin American representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
I'm sure our intelligence communities can document the connection also. In court. Finally. These Muslim wackos should not be running around loose in South America to cause problems there either. Our civilizations are more alike than different.
A Federal judge in your country has ordered the detention of past enemies for crimes they ordered committed. How long can they hold them in jail?
Hello BobS,
But I don't get your question?
"Your country"??? My country is US.
And whose the judge, detaining whom?
I selected Argentina a few years ago as the location to start my offshore branch office, and I've not regretted that decision for one minute since. It's a great place to do business, and the people are truly wonderful.
I'm sorry. I thought you were somewhere else. You know about Argentina. We haven't talked recently. You posted something related to FLOutdoorsman's post that we are talking to each other on that's very interesting. I am also interested in Brasil news. I know. I have a permanent mental block to Portuguese. It turns Spanish upside down and sideways so I don't know either language. Go figure.
We must continue our discussion tomorrow. I must sleep now. I get up at 0430 AM. PST. because I like to:) I like getting home early. Buenos noches, parisa:):)
What type of branch office? What type of business do you run? When I was in college I received a research fellowship and spent a summer there. I have been plotting some way to get back w/ some frequency every since! It really is a special place w/ special people.
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