A year without Nisman — the complaint filed by the late prosecutor could get a new life under Macri
By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
The complaint filed by late prosecutor Alberto Nisman against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) for alleged cover-up of those suspected of bombing the AMIA Jewish community center will celebrate its one-year anniversary on Thursday. It was January 14, 2015 when Nisman, who had been financed and empowered with vast resources by Néstor Kirchner to investigate the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history, shocked the country by accusing the then-president, her Foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, and other minor figures. Four days after the allegation, Nisman was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in his apartment in the neighbourhood of Puerto Maduro, pushing the turmoil to once-unthinkable heights.
The country’s tone is all too often set by confusing and dizzying politics. A few months after the country suffered that shake-up, a long presidential campaign reached its climax, and words like “Nisman” or “AMIA” barely occupied a marginal space in the race to the Pink House. Demonstrations to honour the late prosecutor went from gathering hundreds of thousands in February to just a few dozen in June. As far as the spin doctos were concerned, mentioning Nisman during crucial phases of the campaign would have opened a Pandora’s Box. Mauricio Macri allowed himself a mere gesture on the issue when his team welcomed the former wife of the late prosecutor, San Isidro Federal Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, to the presidential debate at the Buenos Aires University (UBA) Law School. It was a time for photos, not speechess.
Considering what was decided by federal courts in at least three instances, the prosecutor’s complaint against the former president was widely exposed as a fraudulent move. The writ was full of absurd hypotheses, flagrant contradictions and an overwhelming lack of evidence. The prosecutor’s unexpected return from Spain, where he was spending his holidays with one of his daughters, to file the complaint suggests nothing but questionable intentions, with the obvious hand of the intelligence services. “Power games” wrote Arroyo Salgado in a message to Nisman when she realized, while in Barcelona, the real reason why her ex-husband had suddenly moved his flight to Buenos Aires forward, leaving their daughter alone at the Madrid airport.
Nisman’s personal integrity slowly eroded thanks to a number of bank accounts, undeclared houses and alleged methods of money laundering that then left his mother and sister under judicial investigation. Relatives of the victims of the AMIA bombing gathered in different organizations were the first to move away from a prosecutor they had repeatedly denounced when he was alive. The Kirchners may have ignored their complaints for years but in 2015, pretending that this type of criticism didn’t existe fell to the opposition.
Nisman’s improper obedience to the US Embassy was also well recorded. Insistent apologies for failing to follow a specific instruction from Washington was embarrassing even for US diplomats, according to documents exposed by WikiLeaks. In that regard, Nisman’s complaint against the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran played a role in the internal affairs of Israel and the US, frequent ports of destination for the deceased judicial official. Hawks and doves from foreign countries used the allegation and the death as a tool in their domestic disputes. As if this plot was not complicated enough, vulture funds that litigate against Argentina in Manhattan saw an opportunity to finance fake news reports and even established the mysterious “Alberto Nisman Award for courage.”
Judges, prosecutors, journalists, politicians, officers, businessmen, lawyers and intelligence agents emerged from the subsurface of our democracy. Everyone is a spy, everyone is spied on. Extorted extortionists were more clearly brought to light last year. But if the CFK administration saw how that plot turned against it last year, its legitimacy to denounce it was harmed because that government had used those same elements as allies in the previous decade. Moreover, many of the key players of the plot had been appointed or promoted by the Kirchners.
Macri was able to ignore the issue for months, but things changed once he took office. This time the offensive came via prosecutor Raúl Pleé of the Cassation Court, federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano and the judge who is investigating Nisman’s death, Fabiana Palmaghini.
The trio is seeking clues to reactivate a case that had been stuck in the mud. “Off the record” confessions get new life, more speculations and key witnesses come back with a vengance. Everything comes through the same channel that led to the publications of made up stories, such as the one that claimed the prosecutor was shot from a distance of 15 centimeters.
Pleé, a prosecutor that relatives of victims often accused of purposefully delaying the investigation into the AMIA attack, tried to revive Nisman’s complaint once Macri’s government decided not to appeal the unconstitutionality of the agreement with Iran. Taiano, meanwhile, charged Timerman with treason based on a tape-recorded private conversation in which the former Foreign minister spoke against Tehran as the Argentine government had done several times at all the international forums.
For her part, Judge Palmaghini saw room to separate prosecutor Viviana Fein from leading the investigation into Nisman’s death, giving Arroyo Salgado new reasons to celebrate. Nisman’s ex-wife claims to have certainty that her former husband’s death was a homicide contradicting the opinion of all the forensic specialists involved in the case (except those she appointed). These are changing times. Months ago, Palmaghini had pointed fingers at Arroyo Salgado for doing everything to “delay the pending proceedings.” Nisman’s widow has a clear goal. She wants to put the case in the hands of the federal courts — namely, Federal Judge Luis Rodríguez.
The next few hours will be conducive to stir this hornet’s nest. Although the government does not seem particularly excited about the topic, it has two senior officials (not even the most prestigious) ready to take action, if the manhunt of the fugitives leaves space for anything else. The previous administration could give its successors some advice about the danger of dealing with such toxic elements.
@sebalacunza