“Over the next few weeks, every Argentine seemed to have an opinion about how Nisman had died; the case became the Latin-American equivalent of the J.F.K. assassination, grist for conspiracy theories involving spies and foreign governments and conniving politicians. Posters across Buenos Aires asked: Who killed Nisman?”
The New Yorker
January 18 2021 — The 52-year-old was found dead in his apartment on January 18 2015. Five years later, the mysterious death of special prosecutor Albert Nisman is still an unresolved case. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
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“I am not going to speculate because I do not know who killed him but, yes, there are possibly ‘dark forces’ at work in this country.”
Horacio Verbitzky — Argentina journalist and human rights campaigner
UPDATE (January 18 2021) — Much has been happening in the last 12 months, and I will just present the main developments.
New Trial — Argentine Jewish groups were expecting a long-awaited victory in the 26-year struggle for justice in the 1994 AMIA Jewish center terrorist bombing, figuring there was enough evidence to convict the car mechanic accused of preparing the deadly car bomb.
But, on December 23 2020, a federal court acquitted the defendant, Carlos Telleldin, in a second trial in the case.
The court said it would not detail its decision until March 26 2021, offering only a one-line decision to acquit Carlos Alberto Telleldin for the facts that he was accused.
More disinformation — The Times of Israel claims that Israel’s Mossad provided the intelligence information that enabled Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman to prove that Iran orchestrated the 1994 AMIA terrorist bombing.
According to a recent documentary, an ex-Mossad agent gave Nisman incriminating information on former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s alleged efforts to cover up Iran’s role in the blast, in a sequence of events that ultimately led to Nisman’s assassination.
Just a few days ago, the same newspaper claimed that Tehran was responsible for the Lockerbie tragedy and urged president Trump to bomb Iran.
Forget about Tehran — After years of research, independent investigative journalist Gareth Porter has concluded that revelations by a former police spy upend the official story blaming Iran for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
The evidence suggests a cover-up by dirty war elements may have let the real culprits off the hook.
RELATED POST: Buenos Aires AMIA Bombing — New Revelations Exonerate Tehran
Gareth Porter believes that the main witness — Iranian defector Abolghasem Mesbahi — has fabricated false information incriminating Iran for the bombing.
Mesbahi is the same person who fabricated the evidence blaming Tehran for the tragedy of Pan Am Flight 103.
RELATED POST: One Year Ago — Has Iran President Just Admitted Responsibility for Lockerbie? [A personal story about the infamous 5th device]
As the readers of this blog know, I have come to the conclusion that Iran has no responsibility whatsoever in the Lockerbie Affair.
In both cases, impunity for the real culprits continues, but the truth is slowing emerging.
Netflix — Released on January 1 2020, the true-crime docuseries “Nisman: The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy” has caused a furor in Argentina.
The new documentary has elicited public comments from two presidents.
When asked what he thought of Nisman’s death, President Alberto Fernández — a one-time Kirchner chief of staff — replied, “To this day, I doubt he committed suicide.”
“Observing his behavior, seeing a man elated by what he was doing, I find it hard to believe that he could end up committing suicide,” Fernández told Radio 10, mentioning that he met Nisman a few days before his death.
“I’d like to know what happened to Nisman and if he killed himself, why?” Fernández said.
Former President Kirchner publicly applauded the series in a long, personal post celebrating Netflix as having succeeding where Argentine justice failed.
Nisman’s abrupt death was revealed to the world in a tweet posted by Pachter, then a reporter with the Buenos Aires Herald:
“Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found in the bathroom of his Puerto Madero home in a pool of blood. He wasn’t breathing. The doctors are there.”
On Twitter, the government of Argentina posted “the journalist who left the country because he was ‘afraid’ takes refuge in Israel #AMIA #Nisman #Pachter.”
This tweet is no longer available. The account has been suspended.
Stay tuned!
END of UPDATE
“The challenge is very complex. If this had been investigated differently from the start, this would be a whole different thing.”
Federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano
UPDATE (January 18 2020) — Five years after the mysterious death of special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, just days after he accused then-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of a cover-up in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre, a Netflix documentary has revived debate in the country still bitterly divided over the case.
The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy, a six-part docuseries by British filmmaker Justin Webster, examines the prosecutor’s still unsolved death only days after he accused Fernández de Kirchner of colluding with Iran to allow the alleged authors of the bombing to go free.
Calls have gone out on social media for a demonstration this Saturday (January 18 2020) in downtown Buenos Aires against the government of President Alberto Fernández – whose vice-president is Fernández de Kirchner – to mark the anniversary of his death. [Buenos Aires Times]
END of UPDATE
On the next day, Nisman was scheduled to testify before Congress that Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (along with members of her government) had attempted to cover-up a deal that protected the perpetrators of the 1994 bombing of AMIA, a Buenos Aires Jewish cultural center.
Former Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman – relying on the testimony of an Iranian defector named Abolghasem Mesbahi – had accused President Cristina Kirchner of shielding Iranian officials from prosecution over the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center.
[Intel Today was able to communicate with Abolghasem Mesbahi but this writer never met him in person.]
There is no doubt that Nisman’s investigation was receiving some help from the US and Israel intelligence agencies.
Alberto Nisman has by now been murdered although his death was at first quickly reported as a suicide.
“An Argentinian prosecutor was murdered four days after he formally accused the then president Cristina Fernández of covering up the role of Iranian officials in connection with the country’s deadliest terror attack, a border police investigation has found.
The report, obtained by the Associated Press, bases its conclusions on controversial new evidence and sharply contradicts earlier official findings that Alberto Nisman likely killed himself.” [Guardian — November 6 2017]
General Cesar Milani — arrested on February 17 2017 under charges of kidnapping and tortures — is a suspect in the death of the former prosecutor Alberto Nisman.
Former officers of Argentina Intelligence Services are also suspected.
Staged Suicide
Federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano told the AP that Nisman’s death was the most complicated criminal case he had ever investigated.
Taiano, who took over the stalled case from another judge in 2016 following a supreme court order, requested a multidisciplinary border police team take a fresh look after an investigation that had been highly questioned for mishandling of evidence and other irregularities.
Taiano said that the agency, whose main role was to guard borders and fight drug trafficking, was chosen because it hadn’t been involved in the earlier, much-questioned investigation.
The border police report says Nisman was beaten by two people who drugged him and placed him in front of his bathtub. While one of the attackers held him under the armpits “as in a hug” the other placed the gun on his head and shot him. It was about 2:46am on a Sunday.
The investigation listed key evidence that wasn’t mentioned in previous reports: Nisman’s nasal septum was broken, he had suffered blows to his hip and other areas, and ketamine, a drug with strong anaesthetic properties, was in his body
In the La Tablada Jewish cemetery, the bodies of those who killed themselves are relegated to a far corner. Nisman is buried with the victims of the AMIA attack.
Who Killed Alberto Nisman? – In Search of Truth in Argentina
REFERENCES
Former Argentine Army Chief Arrested On Dirty War Charges — telesur
Alberto Nisman: How and why did Argentina prosecutor die? — BBC NEWS
Death of a Prosecutor — The New Yorker
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Remembering Argentina Prosecutor Alberto Nisman (December 5 1963 – January 18 2015)
On This Day — Argentina Prosecutor Alberto Nisman Is Suicided (December 5 1963 – January 18 2015)
Five Years Ago — Argentina Prosecutor Alberto Nisman Is Suicided (December 5 1963 – January 18 2015)
On This Day — Argentina Prosecutor Alberto Nisman Is Suicided (December 5 1963 – January 18 2015) [2021]
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