Slain Argentine Prosecutor Had a Draft Warrant for President’s Arrest

Special prosecutor Alberto Nisman was apparently considering an arrest warrant for Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner before his death Jan. 18, according to a published report.

Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment from a gunshot wound to the head days after publicly accusing the president, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other officials of involvement in a coverup tied to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in which 85 people died.

The prosecutor who had been assigned since 2004 to lead the investigation of the bombing had accused Fernandez of making a deal in 2013 with the Iranian government to cover up Iranian officials’ alleged involvement in the blast. He called it an “alliance with terrorism.”

Earlier, Nisman had accused Iranian officials, some of them operating out of the country’s Buenos Aires embassy, of giving terrorist group Hezbollah financial and logistical aid in carrying out the attack. Nisman said Fernandez’s motivation for the deal may have been in exchange for trade deals.

Fernandez has denied involvement in such a coverup but days after Nisman’s death said she believed his death was a homicide. Nisman died the day before he was to have provided evidence to Argentina’s Congress backing up his claim.

The Argentine newspaper Clarin reported Sunday that among the trash found in Nisman’s apartment was a draft of an arrest warrant for Fernandez in connection with the alleged bombing coverup. Nisman apparently was only considering taking such action, and the final document that Nisman delivered to a judge before his death did not include such a warrant, Clarin reported.

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SOURCE: LA Times, Andres D’Alessandro and Chris Kraul