President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina said documents found in the safe of the late AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman contradicted his own allegations that she had covered up Iran’s role in the 1994 Jewish center attack.
Kirchner in a nearly four-hour televised address March 1 at the opening of a new session of Congress also rebuked Israel for not working to bring the perpetrators of the 1992 bombing of its embassy in Buenos Aires to justice.
She sent a message to the “internal and external actors that used the AMIA case for their own interests,” demanding that they not use Argentina as a “chess theater of geopolitical situations not related to us.”
According to reports, Kirchner said two signed documents were found in Nisman’s safe after he was discovered in his Buenos Aires apartment shot to death on Jan. 18. One argued the case against her, the president said, and the other said she had nothing to do with an alleged cover-up that included other government officials, including the country’s Jewish foreign minister, Hector Timerman.
In fact, she said, both letters praised her efforts in speeches to the United Nations seeking justice in the AMIA attack.
Nisman’s body was found hours before he was to present evidence to Argentine lawmakers alleging a cover-up.
Last week, a federal judge dismissed Nisman’s accusations against Kirchner and her government. — jta