The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and several other defendants to stand trial for the signing of a controversial 2013 accord with Iran to investigate the worst ever terrorist attack on Argentine soil.
The ruling was reached after the court rejected all defence appeals, court sources informed.
The trial relates to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Tehran that Fernández de Kirchner's government said would allow a deeper investigation into the the terrorist bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994.
Critics claim the deal was in fact an agreement designed to prevent the true perpetrators from being brought to justice.
The nation’s top tribunal on Thursday endorsed a previous ruling of the Federal Criminal Cassation Court, revoking the acquittals of all defendants and ordering a trial in the case opened by the denunciation of the late special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was tasked with investigating the 1994 bombing.
Last September the Cassation Court had quashed Fernández de Kirchner’s acquittal in the case investigating allegations the ex-president sought to cover up the AMIA attack.
The court ordered her to stand trial, though her defence lawyers appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that there was no “arbitrariness” in the court's decision to reopen the case in 2023 after it was closed in 2021 and said the trial should proceed.
Eighty-five people died in the 1994 AMIA bombing, the worst terrorist attack on Argentine soil, and more than 300 were injured.
No-one has ever claimed responsibility for the deadly attack but Israel has accused Tehran of sponsoring it, a position Nisman supported.
The case
The case began early in 2015 with a denunciation presented by Nisman claiming that the memorandum signed between Argentina and Iran was an attempt to cover up for those accused of the AMIA attack.
He based the complaint on an alleged move by Fernández de Kirchner’s government to remove the Interpol red alert notices issued against the suspects.
Fernández de Kirchner, 71, was accused of obstructing an investigation into the 1994 bombing, in connection with the controversial deal her administration brokered with Tehran.
In 2013, the then-president Fernández de Kirchner had signed a Memorandum with Iran under which local prosecutors could question the suspects outside Argentina.
The Jewish community in Argentina expressed outrage and accused Fernández de Kirchner of orchestrating a cover-up. The treaty never entered into force.
The accusations related to it were originally lodged by late AMIA special prosecutor Nisman. Just before he was due to testify before Congress about his claims, the prosecutor was found dead with a gunshot to the head. The cause of death – suicide or murder – remains a mystery.
In his indictment, Nisman alleged that in signing the Memorandum, the then-president was trying to clear former Iranian officials, who were wanted internationally via Interpol red alert notices, in exchange for commercial benefits.
The judges, however, said that a cover-up could not be proven, nor was their evidence that benefits had been exchanged. They added that the Interpol “red alerts were always in force and still are.”
In October, 2021, Tribunal Oral Federal No. 8 acquitted all defendants due to the non-existence of a crime.
"The Memorandum, over and above whether it may be considered a hit or miss in political terms, does not constitute a crime," ruled the judges Gabriela López Iñiguez, José Michilini and Daniel Obligado at the time.
Their decision was appealed by members of the DAIA Jewish community organisation and the relatives of AMIA victims.
Dollar futures dismissed
Meanwhile, in another ruling, the Supreme Court also confirmed Fernández de Kirchner’s acquittal in the so-called ‘dollar futures’ case.
The case stems from October 2015 when she was still president. Prosecutors accused Fernández de Kirchner of fraud in relation to contracts for the purchase of future dollars, claiming they were sold below market value resulting in an alleged loss of 55 billion pesos (around US$5.5 billion at the time) for the Central Bank.
Before the 2015 election, in which she left office, the Central Bank agreed to foreign currency sales in a bid to discourage devaluation of the currency during a period of currency controls.
When the next president, Mauricio Macri, came into office and lifted controls, the peso plunged by 30 percent.
The court said that an analysis conducted by Supreme Court accounting experts in 2020 found that there were no irregularities nor detriment to the Central Bank.
In 2021, when she served as vice-president, Fernández de Kirchner was cleared of charges in a unanimous three-judge ruling that said the case lacked evidence and that no crime had been committed.
It shelved the file, saying it was unnecessary to send it to trial.
– TIMES/NA/AFP/PERFIL
Comments