Investigation into the 1994 Bombing in Argentina Was Incomplete and Insufficient - 2002-07-24

Ms. Nilda Garé, a member of the Argentine Congress who led the investigation into the 1994 bombing at a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, announced that the investigation was incomplete and insufficient, and that politicians influenced the judiciary's work. In an interview with Voice of America, Ms. Garé stated that during her leadership of the investigation, she had requested that Abolqasem Mesbahi, a former Iranian intelligence official, be summoned to testify, but the judge in charge of the case rejected this request. Ms. Garé's comments come following a recent report by The New York Times, which quoted Mr. Mesbahi as saying that the Iranian government was responsible for and executed this attack. Mesbahi claims that Iran bribed former Argentine President Carlos Menem with ten million dollars to keep Iran out of the investigation. Argentine officials, frustrated by the lack of results from the investigation, provided The New York Times with a 100-page document of Mesbahi's confidential statements, which the newspaper published in its Monday issue. Carlos Menem, the former president of Argentina who is running for president again, denied the New York Times report and called it defamatory. An Iranian government spokesperson also denied any involvement of the country in the 1994 bombing, calling the New York Times report a journalistic fantasy. Menem accused allies of current President Eduardo Duhalde of fabricating the report to damage his political reputation. President Duhalde has not yet commented on this matter. Meanwhile, Argentine and German officials describe Abolqasem Mesbahi as a high-ranking operative who provided valuable information about the Islamic Republic's terrorist activities in Europe and Asia throughout the mid-1990s. According to The New York Times, Mesbahi apparently sought asylum in Germany in 1996 due to his discontent with the Iranian intelligence agency's involvement in the assassination of dissenting intellectuals within the country.