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Alberto Nisman

Judge rejects cover-up case against Argentine president

Doug Stanglin
USA TODAY
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez speaks during a public event at the government palace Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires on Feb. 11, 2015.

An Argentine federal judge on Thursday dismissed for lack of evidence a complaint against President Cristina Fernandez that she allegedly tried to cover up the purported involvement of Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.

The allegations, also aimed at Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other officials, were filed by the late federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who died mysteriously on Jan. 18, the night before he was to explain his charges to Congress.

In dismissing the case, federal Judge Daniel Rafecas said Nisman's 288-page report failed to meet standards needed to open a formal court investigation, the newspaper Clarin reports.

Protesters post signs on a segment of a crowd control barricade in the Plaza de Mayo at the end of a march organized by federal prosecutors one month after the mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Feb. 18, 2015.

"The evidence gathered far from meets the minimal standard," read a statement from the country's judiciary, the BBC reports.

Nisman's report was filed six days before he was found with a bullet in his head at his Buenos Aires home. It remains unclear whether he died of a suicide or was murdered in what was made to look like a self-inflicted wound.

Polls indicated that many Argentines suspect that the prosecutor was silenced to protect higher officials, although Fernandez and aides have suggested his untimely death was aimed at destabilizing her government.

The Argentine president also charged that Nisman was fed bogus information by a rogue intelligence agent in order to discredit the government.

The attack on the Jewish center killed 85 people and injured hundreds in the deadliest bombing ever in Argentina.

For almost a decade, Nisman alleged that the Hezbollah militia had carried out the bombing at the direction of the Iranian government purportedly because of a decision by Buenos Aires to suspend a nuclear technology transfer contract with Tehran. Iran and Hezbollah have both denied involvement.

Nisman charged that the alleged coverup was part of an elaborate scheme by Fernandez to re-establish trade ties with Tehran and open up access to Iranian oil to ease a domestic energy crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported.

He further alleged that the president had been trying to negotiate immunity for Iranian suspects in the bombings to gain favor with the Iranian government.


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