A New Twist: Argentina’s Tango with Tehran

T he latest chapter of what sounds like a potboiler paperback thriller has played out in Buenos Aires Argentina. An explosive new police report has blown the lid off what appears to be a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up. And the local Jewish community hopes that the wheels of justice are finally taking a favorable turn.

Prosecutor Natalio Alberto Nisman who led the official investigation into the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center that killed 85 people was himself found dead in 2015 a day before he was to present findings to the Argentine Congress that fingered then-president Cristina Kirchner in a government cover-up of Iranian involvement in the attack.

A police investigation into Nisman’s death concluded at the time that he likely killed himself. Kirchner and her associates intimated that he despaired over his case having hit a dead end. The government declarations sparked massive street protests which helped played a role in the subsequent 2015 election of political dark-horse candidate Mauricio Macri as president.

Now a new report issued by the Gendarmería Nacional — the Argentine border police — scrubs the government’s previous assertion and effectively removes all doubt that Nisman was in fact murdered.