Judge Rafecas dismisses AMIA cover-up charge against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

[forest444]

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas has dismissed the accusation made by a state prosecutor that claimed President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and top government officials conspired to cover up Iran's alleged role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center. Federal Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita is expected to appeal the decision to discontinue the investigation.

"The judge believes the minimum conditions to launch a criminal investigation have not been met, based on what the prosecutor presented," the Judicial Information Centre (CIJ) said in a statement.

Four days before he was found dead in his apartment AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman accused President Fernández de Kirchner of conducting secret negotiations to cover-up Iran’s alleged involvement in the 1994 attack that claimed the lives of 85 people and left hundreds injured. Pollicita later went forward with the criminal complaint, claiming Argentina would receive unspecified trade benefits from the deal.

"None of the two hypotheses of a crime put forward by prosecutor Pollicita in his writ stand up to the minimum level of scrutiny," Rafecas wrote in his ruling today.

Iran has long denied any involvement in the AMIA attack.

Read more: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/182999/judge-rafecas-dismisses-amia-coverup-charge-against-president-cristina-fern%C3%A1ndez-de-kirchner

---

It's worth noting as well that Interpol ruled out Iranian complicity in the 1992 Israeli Embassy and 1994 AMIA (Jewish community center) bombings a decade ago already. Forensic investigations conducted at the time showed that both were destroyed by bombs detonated from inside the buildings.

[MisterP]

1. the guy who said Iran "did" this was also the guy who said they "did" 9-11

this guy was one the main antisemites of the Junta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Al%C3%AD_Seineld%C3%ADn

but there's so many to choose from!

[Calista241]

2. Well that just sounds legit.

the prosecutor got suicided. Wonder if the judge was given a glimpse into his own future.

[forest444]

3. It DOES sound legit, when you learn the details:

For starters that the crux of Nisman's case -the assertion that Interpol had been petitioned to lift Red Notices against Iranian officials- was described by Interpol's own Secretary General, Ronald Noble, as a flat-out lie. Nisman, moreover, had already submitted his complaint and all wiretap transcripts to the courts at the time of his death, which would make his murder both stupid and pointless - and on an election year no less (!). All the more so because everyone has known this was coming for two years now.

The Interpol fable was the meat in the sandwich, the sine qua non of Nisman's claims. And since he was no doubt aware it was a bald faced lie, the inescapable conclusion is that he had lent himself to a political hatchet job, willingly or not. This, of course, is the same complaint that not only was rejected in toto by a judge twice (btw, he's no pushover; Vice President Amado Boudou could you all about that), a second prosecutor who resubmitted it refuses to appear before Congress to explain his decision (Gerardo Pollicita, a vocal member of the right-wing opposition party PRO - so named in honor of the 1976-83 'Proceso' dictatorship, which still has many apologists in Argentina). The entire document is available to anyone and thus easily dismissed as a Ken Starr-style frame up, and Pollicita can't very well put himself through a spectacle like that. This is why the Argentine right won't even mention the complaint anymore, and Nisman's murder became the perfect distraction from that as far as they're concerned (hmm...).

I might add that Argentina probably has the most highly politicized media in the world. A veritable army of talking heads strikes gold for themselves on an almost daily basis by spinning the rumor mill thanks to Argentina's very liberal libel laws. This is especially true of anything concerning the presidency, since Cristina Kirchner exempted it from the country's already meek libel laws 5 years ago. Cable news can avoid lawsuits altogether using the "for entertainment purposes" loophole (like Fox does), or simply have their anchor make a non-apology later ("I get ahead of myself", "I get so passionate", etc.).

And guess what? They're all very much still up and at'em. Trust me, if Cristina Kirchner were of the disposition to kill, there's a never-ending list of media hacks, magistrates-for-hire, and politicians that would have been on the hit list years ago. They're all hale, hearty, and in most cases quite wealthy.

Journalists and public figures in other parts of the world - especially in the rest of Latin America - aren't so lucky.