Argentine Phone Calls Detail Efforts to Shield Iran

[bananas]

Source: New York Times

Intercepted conversations between representatives of the Iranian and Argentine governments point to a long pattern of secret negotiations to reach a deal in which Argentina would receive oil in exchange for shielding Iranian officials from charges that they orchestrated the bombing of a Jewish community center in 1994.

The transcripts were made public by an Argentine judge on Tuesday night, as part of a 289-page criminal complaint written by Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor investigating the attack. Mr. Nisman was found dead in his luxury apartment on Sunday, the night before he was to present his findings to Congress.

<snip>

“The publication of Nisman’s complaint is a first step that can contribute to the transparency of an investigation plagued by mystery and frozen for 20 years in a tomb of impunity,” Fernándo González, an editor at the newspaper El Cronista, wrote on Wednesday, arguing that it would pave the way for new investigators and for Mrs. Kirchner to defend herself.

Mr. Nisman asserted for years that Iran had helped plan and finance the bombing, and that its Lebanese ally, the militant group Hezbollah, had carried it out. His body was found at his apartment on Sunday with a gunshot wound to his head in a murky episode that government officials have called a suicide. An investigation by a prosecutor is underway.

<snip>

Just last week, Mr. Nisman, 51, raised tensions further by accusing top Argentine officials, including Mrs. Kirchner, of conspiring with Iran to cover up responsibility for the bombing.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/world/americas/argentine-calls-detail-efforts-to-shield-iran.html?_r=0

[bananas]

1. Protesters rally for justice amid allegations of Argentina-Iran cover-up

http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Protesters-rally-for-justice-amid-allegations-of-Argentina-Iran-cover-up-388531

Protesters rally for justice amid allegations of Argentina-Iran cover-up
By REUTERS
01/22/2015 05:57

Protesters gathered in Buenos Aires on Wednesday to demand justice in Argentina after the mysterious death of a prosecutor who accused the country's president of trying to derail the investigation into a 1994 bombing.

State prosecutor Alberto Nisman, the lead investigator into the 1994 car bomb attack that killed 85 people at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, was found dead in his apartment late on Sunday (January 18), hours before he was scheduled to present his case to Congress.

A 22-calibre pistol was found at his side and Nisman appears to have committed suicide, but many of the details of the case are unclear and allegations of foul play have surged. He died just a few days after accusing President Cristina Fernandez of trying to hamper his probe.

[forest444]

12. Nisman's death was clearly timed for maximum political impact

but against the administration, seeing as it was the day before his Congressional appearance and after he turned in his entire complaint and transcripts - which puts the lie to any notions that he was killed to "silence" him. I might add that the complaint itself contributed nothing besides a wordy - but proofless - restatement of Nisman's pet hypotheses (http://buenosairesherald.com/article/180042/nothing-new-nismans-report-fails-to-fan-flames-of-conspiracy-). Nisman's death is the best thing that could have happened as far as those trying to tar the administration are concerned, and they're not about to let this opportunity pass by.

What most outsiders don't realize is that the unholy alliance of dictatorship apologists, free-marketeers, and the Opus Dei are still very much alive and kicking in Argentina - and Señora Kirchner is their public enemy number one. The disgraced former State Counterintelligence director Jaime Stiusso is one such character, and he was not only the source for Nisman's illegal, cherry-picked wiretaps (which as the article noted, contributed nothing), Stiusso was also a frequent guest at Nisman's home.

And Nisman? He died discredited by everyone from the judge presiding over the case, Interpol, and victims' rights groups for spending 10 years blocking and distracting any real investigation. He was especially fond of flouting orders by the judge and openly presenting his baseless "complaints" to right-wing television. He knew how to use the media, and knew that what he lacked in proof, he could always make up for by theatrics on cable news (particularly those of the Fox-like persuasion).

His perfectly-timed death is just another chapter in ongoing efforts of killing two birds with one stone: shift public opinion in an election year (upon which some "business-friendly" party could take over), and of course preclude any investigation of the two terrorist attacks (the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing, and the AMIA bombing - both detonated from inside the buildings) - just as Nisman did for 10 years.

[bananas]

2. Argentine Judge Releases Criminal Complaint Against President

http://www.wsj.com/articles/argentine-judge-releases-criminal-complaint-against-president-1421862575

Argentine Judge Releases Criminal Complaint Against President

Late Prosecutor’s Report Accuses Government of Conspiring to Sabotage Inquiry Into a Terrorist Bombing

By Taos Turner and Ryan Dube

BUENOS AIRES—A federal judge released the entire criminal complaint alleging Argentina’s president and her associates conspired with Iran to sabotage a probe into a 1994 terrorist bombing here, detailing passages from intercepted phone calls and other evidence.

The 289-page complaint was compiled by Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor whose body was found a day before he was scheduled to present at a congressional hearing the report on...

<snip - paywalled>

The full article is unpaywalled at:

http://imarketreports.com/argentine-judge-releases-criminal-complaint-against-president-5.html

Argentine Judge Releases Criminal Complaint Against President
By Taos Turner And Ryan Dube

BUENOS AIRES–A federal judge released the entire criminal complaint alleging Argentina’s president and her associates conspired with Iran to sabotage a probe into a 1994 terrorist bombing here, detailing passages from intercepted phone calls and other evidence.

The 289-page complaint was compiled by Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor whose body was found a day before he was scheduled to present at a congressional hearing the report on the attack that killed 85 people at a Jewish center here.

The timing of Mr. Nisman’s death has sparked protests and anger against Cristina Kirchner’s government from Argentines.

On Sunday, Mr. Nisman’s body was found in the bathroom of his 13th floor apartment in an upscale neighborhood here. He had suffered a gunshot to the head, and a .22-caliber handgun was found next to his body, according to an autopsy and the prosecutor investigating Mr. Nisman’s death. The autopsy determined he fired the gun at himself at point-blank range.

On Wednesday, a locksmith who had been called in by the prosecutor investigating Mr. Nisman’s death told reporters that the service door to his apartment had been easy to open. Meanwhile, local media reported that investigators had discovered a third entrance to Mr. Nisman’s home–a tight passage connected to another apartment. Media reports said it contained fresh fingerprints and footprints.

<snip>

[uhnope]

5. Can I ask a (maybe dumb) question?

Why would Iran/Hezbollah be blowing things up down in Argentina?

[geek tragedy]

7. Because there are Jews there. nt

[JDPriestly]

8. A Jewish facility. Because Hezbollah is a hateful, mean organization.

Just like all the other terrorist groups. That's why.

People who kill want to kill. The theology, the ideology is the excuse. It's the killing that these people are about. The want to kill. Period.

If they wanted to change things, they would not kill. Killing does not change things. Talking and writing and moving people to think differently change things. Killing satisfies the ugly urge to take complete control over and destroy another person. It is not rational at all. It seeks excuses.

Killing is the act of a sick coward. Whether they call themselves pro-life or Hezbollah or whatever, they are sick cowards.

[bananas]

9. Argentina's decision to suspend a nuclear technology transfer contract

Wikipedia has a lengthy article on the bombing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing

On October 25, 2006, Argentine prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing, and the Hezbollah militia of carrying it out.[7][8] According to the prosecution's claims in 2006, Argentina had been targeted by Iran after Buenos Aires' decision to suspend a nuclear technology transfer contract to Tehran.[9] This has been disputed because the contract was never terminated, and Iran and Argentina were negotiating on restoration of full cooperation on all agreements from early 1992 until 1994, when the bombing occurred.[10]

[uhnope]

11. thanks

If true, it would fit the pattern of some governments using the so-called terrorist organizations in their countries as de facto hit squads that hit targets that the governments want them to

Neo-Nazi death squad was run from Putin's Kremlin:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016108163

However, it's murky, since the nuclear technology contract was never in fact terminated.

[JDPriestly]

17. See my post #16. Apparently this was just one of a number of attacks linked to

Hezbollah or Palestinians.

[Behind the Aegis]

13. Jews

Same reason people are claiming this about "smearing" the current government. The Jews are behind it.

Some things never change.

[forest444]

19. And why would, in both cases,

the bomb have been inside the buildings?

[Behind the Aegis]

20. Why don't you tell us? You seem to be impying you know or suspect something.

So...spill!

[bananas]

3. Why the death of an Argentine prosecutor is captivating the world

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/21/why-the-death-of-an-argentine-prosecutor-is-captivating-the-world/

Why the death of an Argentine prosecutor is captivating the world
By Adam Taylor January 21 at 3:02 PM

You don't have to be a conspiracy fanatic to be gripped by the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman late Sunday. Just a few days before he was found dead in his apartment, apparently of a gunshot wound, he himself had made an ominous prediction to a journalist: "I might get out of this dead."

Nisman's concern came from the complicated, controversial nature of his work. He had led a long investigation into the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994. The attack left 85 dead, making it the worst act of terrorism in Argentine history.

After previous investigations had been criticized for incompetence, in 2006, Nisman accused high-level officials in Iran of orchestrating the attack and Lebanese group Hezbollah of carrying it out (Tehran has denied the accusations). By 2013, however, Argentina's government cut a deal with Iran to set up what it called a "truth commission" – a plan to investigate the bombing together, which critics called a whitewashing of Tehran's alleged involvement in the bombing.

Just last week, Nisman had accused Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of secretly negotiating with Iran to avoid punishing those responsible. “The president and her foreign minister took the criminal decision to fabricate Iran’s innocence to sate Argentina’s commercial, political and geopolitical interests,” Nisman said, according to the Associated Press.

<snip>

[uhnope]

4. mind-blowing

While creating ties with Venezuela, Bolivia and Russia, Iran worked behind the scenes to get this bombing blamed on...anybody else.

[bananas]

6. Iran Has A Lot To Gain From The Death Of A Crusading Argentine Prosecutor

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-iran-gains-from-the-death-of-a-crusading-argentine-prosecutor-2015-1

Iran Has A Lot To Gain From The Death Of A Crusading Argentine Prosecutor

Armin Rosen
Jan. 21, 2015, 5:41 PM

<snip>

The lack of an exit wound suggested the fatal shot was fired at a further distance than Nisman could have managed had the wound been self-inflicted. His last WhatsApp was a photo of stacks of documentation related to the next day's testimony and Nisman had apparently given his maid a grocery list for the following week. A 10-person government security detail was reportedly pulled off of his apartment the night of his assassination. Most damningly, there was no gunpowder residue found on Nisman's hands, physical evidence that he didn't discharge a firearm prior to his death.

<snip>

As Washington Institute for Near East Policy scholar Matthew Levitt recounts in his book Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God, Iranian intelligence chief Ali Fallahian "was given overall operational responsibility for the attack," which was approved by Iran's Supreme National Security Council on August 14, 1993.

The act was carried out through a terrorist cell organized by an Iranian-born and Buenos Aires-based Shi'ite cleric named Mohsen Rabbani who had been given a sinecure at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires just months before the attack. Phone records connect the embassy to a number in Brazil's border region belonging to a safe-house used by agents from Hezbollah, the Iranian regime's adjunct in Lebanon, responsible for actually executing the attack.

The AMIA bombing was one of the worst anti-Semitic massacres anywhere on earth in decades. But it was part of what was then a consistent policy of big-ticket state-sponsored terrorism for Tehran's revolutionary regime, which had only been in power for 15 years at the time.

Iranian agents assisted in Hezbollah and Shi'ite militia attacks on the US Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983, and on attacks on the US embassy in the city in 1984 and 1984, that killed 394 people total. Hezbollah and a second Shi'ite group carried out of a series of attacks in Kuwait in 1983 that targeted the US and French embassies and nearly destroyed an oil terminal.

<snip>

In 2011 Iranian agents were uncovered plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US in 2011. And in 2012 a Hezbollah suicide bombing targeted Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, killing 6 people. (Hezbollah operatives came close to pulling off a major attack against the Israeli embassy in Bangkok, Thailand in 2012.) Aside from Shi'ite organizations like Hezbollah and Iraq's Badr Group, the State Department's 2013 citation of Iran group as a state sponsor of terrorism notes its support for Al Qaeda elements in Iraq, some of which later formed the Islamic State.

<snip>

[JDPriestly]

10. Thanks. Very interesting.

[forest444]

14. It would be if Nisman had had anything to offer, after 10 years on the job

But no - the much-touted complaint was basically a restatement of his pet theories, with nothing new by way of proof (http://buenosairesherald.com/article/180042/nothing-new-nismans-report-fails-to-fan-flames-of-conspiracy-). Even taking the (illegally-obtained) wiretaps into account, they show no "deal" at all.

The complaint itself has numerous blatant lies, from claiming three people were State Intelligence personnel when they were not, to claiming the administration wanted Red Alerts (international arrest orders) lifted when Interpol has reiterated they did not. The complaint, btw, was filed before the man's death, which disproves notions that he was killed to "silence" him.

And "crusading" is hardly how AMIA victims' rights groups described Señor Nisman (http://www.infonews.com/2015/01/14/politica-181273-familiares-de-las-victimas-cruzaron-a-nisman-esta-haciendo-politica-ataque-de-nisman.php). "Lacking credibility", "politically-motivated", and "self-victimizing" is more like it.

[JDPriestly]

15. Well. I just heard about this. We shall see what proof he may have or may not have had.

The question remains "who caused the deaths?" Who was behind the killings? Was it a lone actor or a conspiracy? Those questions remain open and until answered will be the subject of a lot of theories. His complaint contains some of those theories.

We shall see. There is some explanation for the deaths somewhere. Whether he was on the right track remains to be seen. This is a story to watch.

[JDPriestly]

16. Woops! Wikipedia reports:

The bombing came two years after the March 17, 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires which killed 29 and wounded 242, and was Argentina's deadliest attack until the AMIA bombing. The Islamic Jihad Organization, which according to Robert Baer operates under the umbrella of Hezbollah and is linked to Iran,[13] claimed responsibility for that bombing.[14] Some[who?] suspect that the AMIA bombing was connected to the embassy attack.[15] To date, authorities have been unable to locate those responsible for either of the two bombings.

The day after the AMIA attack, a suicide bombing on a Panamanian commuter plane killed all 21 passengers, 12 of whom were Jews. Investigators determined that the bombing was perpetrated by a "Lya Jamal" – thought to be "an Arab traveling under an alias, using fraudulently obtained Colombian documents."[16]

Eight days after the AMIA attack, the Israeli embassy in London was car-bombed, and thirteen hours later a similar car bomb exploded outside a Jewish community centre in London. No one was killed but 22 were injured and "millions of pounds of damage" was done.[17] Five Palestinians were later arrested in London and two convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison in connection with the bombings.[18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing

Nisman had reason to suspect Hezbollah. They were involved in other bombings and attacks around the world in the years and weeks before and after the bombing in Argentina. There is a pattern. Makes Hezbollah's involvement a more believable possibility.

[forest444]

18. None of which, unfortunately, have ever been solved

Least of all by Nisman, who spent his 10 years as special prosecutor parroting theories spoon-fed to him by the extremist, U.S.-backed Iranian faction MEK and by Jaime Stiusso, a disgraced former State Counterintelligence official with close links to Argentina's (mostly anti-Semitic) right-wing - and doing so to the detriment of his job, as victims' rights groups can attest.

I might add that Stiusso -a trained intelligence officer with a grudge against the administration - was a frequent guest at Nisman 's home.

[JDPriestly]

21. Who do you htink killed all those people?

Seems to me that according to Wikipedia, the FBI said Hezbollah performed at least one of the crimes. Who would and could have organized such a horrifying crime spree?

I had never heard about these murders until the other day.

So I have no particular opinion one way or the other.

But how many organizations are there on this earth that would target groups of Jewish people for no apparent reason other than because they are Jewish. And target quite a number of groups of Jewish people.

And the modus operandi is always rather similar. Whoever killed the people seemed to be rather well organized and have a lot of money to travel and set up crime scenes in different countries.

And they seemed to be motivated by an obsession with killing Jewish people -- outside of Israel -- where the Jewish people were easy to kill.

Of course, maybe these killings were unrelated, just the work of individual madmen obsessed with organizing and carrying out the killing of large groups of Jewish people?

I would like to hear your explanation for this. Because there is one somewhere.

As an older person, I remember that Palestinian terrorists were such a common threat that even when I traveled on Jordanian Airlines, we had an intrusive security check because even Jordaninan Airlines when that company existed had to deal with the threat of Palestinian terrorism.

A lot of DUers have forgotten those days or maybe never knew about them because they didn't fly on airplanes at that time.

Who do you think "done" it?

[forest444]

22. Thanks to self-promoting prima donnas like the late Alberto Nisman,

we may never know - and that's the opinion of AMIA victims' rights groups as well. Like them, I only hope and pray the next special prosecutor will investigate all leads (even those some foreign powers would rather he not, unlike the servile Mr. Nisman) and let the facts lead the way.