Alberto Nisman march to take place in Plaza Vaticano

Demonstrators will gather in large numbers at the Plaza Vaticano at 6.30pm this evening to remember Alberto Nisman on the fifth anniversary of his death.

The rally, which will centre on the corner of Cerrito and Viamonte, will take place just a few metres from the Palace of Justice. A host of local politicians are expected to attend the event, which will have a sharp anti-Kirchnerite tone. Outspoken Civic Coalition lawmaker Elisa Carrió has already confirmed her attendance.

Protesters are expected to demand their call for justice for the late AMIA special prosecutor, who they believe was murdered five years ago today. One flyer for the event bears the slogan: “It was not suicide, it was an assassination.”

Other rallies are expected to take place around the country, with some scheduled to take place outside Argentine embassies and consulates across the world. Organisers plan to read out the same statement at each event, which includes text declaring: “That is why we say here today: Justice You Shall Pursue. It was not suicide, it was a murder.”

On Sunday, the DAIA Jewish organisation will hold a separate ceremony of remembrance at 10am the La Tablada cemetery in Greater Buenos Aires, where Nisman’s body in buried. After that ceremony, headed by DAIA chief Jorge Knoblovits, a family-only ceremony will also take place. Nisman’s mother, Sara Garfunkel, the late prosecutor’s wife, federal judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, and his daughter’s Iara and Kala are expected to attend.

A recently-released Netflix documentary, Nisman: The Prosecutor, The President, and the Spy, has reignited the debate surrounding the circumstances of his death, which became known in the early hours of Monday, January 19, 2015. 

Nisman was found with a close-range gunshot wound to the head, with a handgun at his side, in his apartment in the Torre del Parque building of the Le Parc Puerto Madero development.

Four days before his death, the prosecutor had denounced then-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and other government officials of covering up Iran’s role in the 1994 AMIA Jewish community centre attack in Buenos Aires, which left 85 people dead. In September 2017, the National Gendarmerie issued a report concluding that Nisman had been murdered.

– TIMES/NA