Decades-Old Attacks Blamed on Iran and Hezbollah
Over three decades after deadly attacks in Buenos Aires targeted Israel’s embassy and a Jewish center, an Argentine court has placed the blame on Iran and declared it a “terrorist state,” according to local media reports.
The ruling states that Iran had ordered the 1992 attack on Israel’s embassy, which left 29 dead, as well as the 1994 attack on the Argentina Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish center, the deadliest in Argentina’s history, leaving 85 dead and 300 injured.
The court also implicated the Iran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah in carrying out the AMIA attack, calling it a “crime against humanity.”
“Hezbollah carried out an operation that responded to a political, ideological and revolutionary design under the mandate of a government, of a State,” said Carlos Mahiques, one of the three judges who issued the decision, referencing Iran.
Decades of Investigations and Accusations
The 1994 AMIA attack has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group carried it out at Iran’s request.
Prosecutors have charged top Iranian officials with ordering the attack, but Tehran has denied any involvement.
The judges ruled that then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Bahramaie Rafsanjani as well as other Iranian officials and Hezbollah members were responsible for the AMIA attack.
The decision was welcomed by the president of the Delegation of Israelite Associations of Argentine (DAIA), Jorge Knoblovits, who said it “enables the victims to go to the International Criminal Court.”
Ongoing Investigations and Prosecutions
Former Argentine president Carlos Menem, who was in office at the time of both attacks, was tried for covering up the AMIA bombing, but ultimately acquitted.
However, his former intelligence chief Hugo Anzorreguy was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail for his role in obstructing the probe.
Several other defendants, including the former judge who led the investigation into the attack, Juan Jose Galeano, have also faced corruption and obstruction of justice charges related to the case.
