Editor’s note: this article was written before the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.
In my book, To Kill Without A Trace (2009), I tried to underline the significance of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, whose life’s work will deserve a chapter in Argentina’s history books.
Surrounded by the resented, mediocre, and deluded; pitted against the apathetic, reactionary, and cynical, Nisman has once again helped the truth prevail over the vacuous insults and attempts to discredit him.
We’re witnesses to a third brave, dogged comeback in the AMIA case, the last great case of the Argentinean judiciary, which has pivoted at three points: 2006, 2013, and 2015. But an increasingly gloomy picture now emerges.
The first stage (the October 25, 2006, ruling) demonstrated the involvement of the terrorist Iranian state in the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires. The second (May 29, 2013) proved that the attack was not an isolated incident, but rather was part of an international terrorist network that has declared war on free societies.
The third document — Nisman’s accusations of January 15, 2015 — allege that the president and her subservient foreign minister tried to fabricate the innocence of the culprits and cover up the largest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Treachery and corruption have spread to the highest levels of power in Argentina. The country, justice, and the memory of the victims are now for sale to the highest bidder.
The traitors’ motivation is two-fold. On the one hand, their thinking is mired in the deluded idea of “confronting imperialism,” inspired by an anachronistic and short-sighted Chavista worldview. On the other, there are pure commercial interests: Argentina’s desire to keep cheap Iranian oil at any cost.
The third stage of the Nisman trilogy begins an uncertain new era. It’s also a posthumous homage to journalist Pepe Eliaschev, who was the first to denounce the infamous 2013 memorandum of understanding between the government of Argentina and Iran.
I took the liberty of closing my book with a zajal imitating the words of Martín Fierro: They will dispute your impartiality / your intention, noble birth, age / but never the Ruling / because amid their excuses, they know: / when these are over, the truth remains unmoved.
This holds true today. The admirable Nisman trilogy rests upon unimpeachable mountains of data, evidence, and professional investigation. Supporters of Luis D’Elía can criticize the prosecutor, attack him, question his motivations, character, and accuse him of being a lapdog to the galaxy’s Zionist overlord.
But they will never be able to rationally refute the 300 pages of criminal indictment.
Dictatorship of Proof
Two years before the signing of the 2013 memorandum for a Truth Commission, Cristina Kirchner and her accomplice, Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, began orchestrating the impunity of the Iranian fugitives. Former President Néstor Kirchner, Cristina’s late husband who had always considered the AMIA mishandled case a “national disgrace,” had just passed away.
The duet approached Iran to alleviate Argentina’s energy crisis: they made a deal with the anti-Israel regime for blood-tainted oil, and even agreed to sell guns to the ayatollahs.
They had no qualms with contacting the mastermind of the AMIA bombing, Mohsen Rabbani, to whom Timerman promised to persuade Interpol to drop its arrest warrants issued against the Iranian suspects. But neither counted on Interpol’s refusal, who wouldn’t sink to the moral depths of the Argentinean official.
The plot’s goal was to divert the investigation, abandon Argentina’s claim for justice, and damn the AMIA case to oblivion (they claimed the investigation was “paralyzed”). To negotiate with the Iranian middleman, Jorge “Yussuf” Khalil, they appointed a crew of low-lives: Fernando Esteche, Luis D’Elía, and Andrés “Crow” Larroque.
Besides fabricating the alternative hypothesis, they needed someone who knew the case in depth. The chosen one was Héctor Yrimia, a former prosecutor on the AMIA case, who supplied the necessary information to disseminate the story in a shameful day for Argentinean justice.
The conspiracy was set in motion on January, 2011, in Aleppo, Syria. During a private meeting between the foreign ministers of Iran and Argentina, the Argentinean officials promised their Iranian counterparts that they would abandon the renewed AMIA investigations started in 2003.
Once impunity was agreed upon, and the false lead was planted, both governments signed the January, 2013 memorandum — which far from putting an end to the case, instead proved to be only the beginning of the headache for the authorities in Buenos Aires and Tehran.
The “Truth Commission” established as a result of the pact confused the matters even more by generating false hypotheses and delegitimizing the Argentinean investigation. However, the ayatollahs grew angry when the Argentinean government failed to put a stop to Interpol’s arrest warrants.
Luis D’Elía and Jorge “Yussuf” Khalil, sinister types in the two countries who share the same profile — enemies of Israel close to power but occupying no official post — made new moves in both countries to stifle the evidence.
But the Nisman trilogy has unraveled the most disgraceful ruse in Argentina’s entire history. After so much skepticism and defeatism regarding justice ever being served, with Nisman’s latest accusation there’s renewed hope for the future of a fair Argentinean society free from impunity.
Gustavo D. Perednik is a philosopher and Argentinean writer who lives in Israel. He has authored 15 books and over 1,000 articles about Judaism and modernity.
Translated by Daniel Duarte. Edited by Laurie Blair and Fergus Hodgson.