By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
The prosecutor served interests while alive; many take advantage of his death
Late prosecutor Alberto Nisman used to serve different interests while he was in charge of the AMIA investigation. For example, he spearheaded the strategy of the national government which, due to unclear reasons, decided to focus the accusation on Iranian clerics to the detriment of any other lead. Thus, in agreement with the Intelligence services, Nisman neglected any domestic responsibililities in the worst attack in Argentina’s history.
The scheme for at least nine years — which include Néstor Kirchner’s administration and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s first term — meant that the prosecutor fed the accusation against Iran and the national government brought the complaint before international forums.
The strategy suited many palates. US and Israel governments did not hide their intention and privately maneouvered to only place the Islamic Republic of Iran in the dock. Washington even instructed Nisman for many years, which was followed without objection. When the Argentine government learned of this workflow (2011), it did nothing to place one of the most important cases of Argentine courts in the hands of a more independent investigator.
The status quo found Nisman in charge of an office granted with unrestricted resources and a key ally embodied in the leadership of the main Argentine Jewish association, the DAIA. As a matter of fact, DAIA expressed many times its concern about the situation of a former president and his attorney, indicted for allegedly being part of the scandalous first AMIA investigation led by former federal judge Juan José Galeano.
For years, many interests converged behind Nisman’s strategy except for those of the relatives of the victims who died on the 1994 bombing, according to what has been reported by organizations 18J, Memoria Activa and APEMIA. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime, whose anti-semitic president was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad between 2005 and 2013, did not move an inch to cooperate with the investigation.
The Memorandum of Understanding with Iran took place in 2013. Israel and DAIA questioned it but Nisman didn’t do as much.
One day last January, the AMIA special prosecutor returned “unexpectedly” from vacations to present 48 hours later a shocking complaint against President Fernández de Kirchner and other officials for allegedly covering up the responsability of the perpetrators of the AMIA bombing and four days later his body was found in a pool of blood.
With his death, a new festival of uses of Nisman started.
As soon as the writ against Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman was released, its contradictions, lack of evidence and groundless theories were exposed. Two days before Nisman’s death, the complaint would receive an emphatic denial from the former head of Interpol. Weeks later more irregularities appeared, which would leave the complaint in an even murkier atmosphere.
In a healthy step for the case and Argentine democracy, Nisman’s writ underwent judical review in two instances. Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas and two magistrates of an appeals court unit let the prosecutor’s text speak for itself, and barely made an effort to investigate the real intentions behind the complaint filed by their late colleague.
Shocked by the complaint, not only did the government make its defence but also, from the head of state down, began to speculate about the causes of death and made comments about his private life that were on the edge of obscenity. Someone even believed that insulting Nisman was an acceptable approach.
Nisman’s record clearly allows for both criticism or suspicion about his political intentions and his honesty. His friend Diego Lagomarsino admitted to be paid to carry out almost no work in exchange for returning to him half of his salary. But in any case, the weakness of the Kirchnerite stance is that Nisman’s opacity did not begin on January 14, when he filed the complaint against the president.
The uses of the late prosecutor have been manifold. Opponents (politicians and media) face problems when they try to give the complaint a semblance of seriousness, a needed step to charge the national government with a “murder” of a “hero” — a tantalizing theory that excites the most impassioned but can become a boomerang in the near future. Sudden confessors of the deceased prosecutor and astute researchers appeared to add to the intrigue.
At the same time, some of the most toxic components of the Argentine judiciary such as prosecutors accused by relatives of AMIA victims of obstructing the investigation, try to distort the case with brutal methods. The government pays the price, once again, for having used such services not long ago.
As if all of this were not enough, the notorious efforts of Nisman’s ex-wife, Federal Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, to bring the case to a federal judge with close ties to some sectors of the Intelligence service leads to more confusion. Arroyo Salgado speaks of “scientific evidence” of a murder found by experts she hired which was not even described as such in the report that she submitted to the investigation. Additionally, her forensic report strangely reached TV screens, including lurid images of Nisman’s corpse. Meanwhile, it remains unknown if the prosecutor’s ex-wife pursues the same objectives as the mother and sister of the victim, co-owners of a bank account in US with the enigmatic Lagomarsino. Arroyo Salgado’s former mother-in-law and former sister-in-law claimed they cannot testify before the prosecution due to medical reasons, so they didn’t clarify details about the bank account that surprised her.
@sebalacunza