Argentine justice ruled Thursday that the deadly attacks against the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the Israeli mutual fund AMIA in 1994 in Buenos Aires had been sponsored by Iran, a position described as “historic” by the local Jewish community .
Thursday’s judgment “is historic, unique in Argentina”
The judgment of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation II also names the Shiite movement Hezbollah as the perpetrator of the attack, declares Iran a “terrorist state” and qualifies the attack against AMIA as a “crime against humanity”, according to the text, quoted in the press. “Hezbollah carried out an operation that responded to a political, ideological, revolutionary purpose and under the mandate of a government, of a state,” Judge Carlos told Radio con Vos, referring to Iran. Mahiques, one of the three magistrates who made the decision.
Two attacks targeted the Argentine Jewish community in Buenos Aires. A first in 1992, against the Israeli embassy (29 dead and 200 injured) and a second in 1994 against the building of the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) where 85 people were killed and 300 injured, the worst attack of the country’s history. Thursday’s judgment “is historic, unique in Argentina, we owed it not only to Argentina: we owed it to the victims,” declared Jorge Knoblovitz, president of the delegation of Argentine Jewish associations, on LN+ television. In addition, it “opens the possibility of a complaint to the International Criminal Court, because it has been clearly established that the Iranian state is a terrorist state,” he said.
Iran has denied any involvement in the attack
The attack against the Amia has never been claimed or elucidated. But the Argentine justice system and Israel already considered that Iran was the sponsor and that he had been executed by men from the Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah. Arrest warrants are still in force since 2006 against eight Iranians. And in 2023, Argentine justice requested an international arrest warrant against four Lebanese nationals, suspected of having participated “secondarily” in the AMIA attack. Iran has denied any involvement in the attack and has always refused to allow its senior officials at the time to be questioned.
The judges’ pronouncement on Thursday, in clear and unprecedented terms, however, comes within the framework of procedures parallel to the attacks themselves. They concern appeals for convictions for obstructing the investigation, in particular on the part of a judge, and a former intelligence chief, who saw their sentences confirmed, but reduced. The judges’ judgment, of 711 pages, examines the geopolitical context of the two attacks and establishes that their motivation, multiple, indirectly responded to the foreign policy of the Peronist (liberal) president of the time, Carlos Menem (1989-1999).
“They have their origins mainly in the unilateral decision of the government – motivated by a change in the foreign policy of our country between the end of 1991 and mid-1992 – to cancel three contracts for the supply of nuclear material and technology concluded with the Iran”, indicates one of the two judgments from Thursday, consulted by AFP, which reviews irregularities during the investigation.
Thursday’s pronouncement comes as the proximity displayed by ultraliberal President Javier Milei with Judaism and the State of Israel, such as his desire to move the Argentine embassy to Jerusalem, has re-emerged fears of seeing the Argentina targeted by anti-Semitic terrorist attacks. “And where do you think the attacks (of 1992 and 1994, Editor’s note) came from? We are already on the radar,” Javier Milei declared this week, when asked about this risk. “The question is whether we are cowards, or whether we position ourselves on the side of good,” he insisted, referring to a close alliance with Israel. Argentina’s Jewish community is the largest in Latin America, with more than 250,000 members.