New York Times: Iran Bought Argentina's Silence on the 1994 Jewish Center Explosion

The New York Times reports that Iranian officials paid $10 million to former Argentine President Carlos Menem to keep Iran's involvement in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires concealed. In Tehran, Hamid Reza Asefi, the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, dismissed the report as 'baseless.' In Argentina, aides to the former president denied any cover-up regarding the incident. The New York Times based its report on a 100-page document containing statements from a high-ranking Iranian intelligence defector, who allegedly provided information on this matter to Argentine investigators. The newspaper noted that a copy of the Iranian defector's statements was provided to them by some Argentine officials, who are very dissatisfied that the bombing of the Jewish community center remains unresolved. In that explosion, 85 people were killed. A witness to the incident, a man named Abdolqasem Mesbahi, claimed that Iranian officials devised the plan for the attack in 1992 at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires. Mesbahi told Argentine investigators that two organizational units initiated actions at the Iranian embassy. One unit sought to collaborate with Argentine police to bomb the Jewish community, while the second unit arranged to obtain explosives from Brazil. According to Mesbahi, after the July 18, 1994 attack, negotiations on this matter took place in Tehran between Iranian officials and an envoy of Carlos Menem. Mesbahi claims that it did not take long for the $10 million to be deposited into an account provided by Menem. Initially, Argentine officials held Iran responsible for the bombing but later noted that there was insufficient evidence to link Iran to the incident. Menem, who ruled Argentina for 10 years, is now campaigning for a third presidential term. A group of mourners held a ceremony last Thursday to mark the eighth anniversary of the bombing in Buenos Aires. This attack occurred two years after another bombing that targeted the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which resulted in 29 deaths. The mystery of the Israeli embassy bombing also remains unresolved.