According to a report published on Monday in The New York
Times, a high-level defector from Iran's intelligence
agency said that Iran was behind the bombing of the AMIA
Jewish community center in Buenos Aires almost exactly eight
years ago on July 18, 1994. The explosion murdered 85 people.
The Iranian informant is said to have worked for Iran's
intelligence services and to have defected to Germany in 1996
because he was upset at his agency's involvement in the
killing of dissident Iranian intellectuals locally and
abroad.
Later, according to the informant, Iran paid Argentina's
president, Carlos Saul Menem, $10 million to help it hide its
involvement.
A 100-page transcript of secret testimony given by the
Iranian was provided to The New York Times, said the
paper, by Argentine officials frustrated that the case
remains unsolved. Israel has long maintained that Iran was
behind the bombing.
The Argentinean Jewish community and the world Jewish
community have watched the long, fruitless investigation with
frustration. Evidence has disappeared, leads have been
ignored and witnesses have been threatened and apparently
bribed. Nothing conclusive has come out.
According to the witness, who gave his name as Abdolghassem
Mesbahi, Mr. Menem, who was president from 1989 to 1999,
benefited from his ties to Iranian intelligence officials for
many years. They maintained their relationship with him
because of his rising political power, his Muslim ancestry
and his connections to Argentina's small but influential
Syrian-Lebanese community.
Mr. Menem, who is now again a leading candidate for
president, spent six months under house arrest last year on
charges that he had overseen an illegal arms smuggling
operation while in office, apparently unconnected with the
bombings.
A spokesman for Mr. Menem suggested that the accusations were
politically motivated and denied any official cover-up.
"Every intelligence agency in the world had free passage in
Argentina to investigate this case," he said. "We were
completely open. We did everything that the courts asked for.
. . . President Menem was totally clear about that at the
time."
Iranian officials in Teheran have denied involvement in the
bombing.
Mr. Mesbahi said the planning for the attack in Buenos Aires
began in 1992, led by Iran's cultural attache at the time and
supervised by a senior official of the Iranian intelligence
agency.
Nilda Garre, who led the Argentine government's antiterrorism
unit in 2000 and 2001, and other Argentine officials said Mr.
Mesbahi's account has been confirmed by another Iranian who
visited the Argentine Embassy in Teheran twice.
Mr. Mesbahi said that after the attack, negotiations took
place in Teheran with an emissary, a bearded man of about 50
sent by Mr. Menem. The result was that "$10 million was
deposited into a numbered account that Menem had indicated,"
Mr. Mesbahi reportedly said.
In return, Mr. Mesbahi said, Mr. Menem agreed to "make
declarations that there was no evidence against Iran that it
was responsible."
The Menem government initially blamed Iran, but in later
statements it said that there was insufficient proof.
Eamon Mullen, the Argentine government's chief prosecutor in
the case, told the Times that investigators had
confirmed that a deposit had been made into an account
controlled by Mr. Menem at the bank named by Mr. Mesbahi and
in the amount he had specified.
"But it is not known who made the deposit or on what date,"
Mr. Mullen said, leaving open the possibility that the
payment could have been a payoff for other acts of corruption
of which Mr. Menem has been accused or from some other
source.
After the bombing, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded
Ayatollah Khomeini as Iran's supreme leader and still holds
that post, publicly expressed his approval of the crime.
Because Mr. Menem was of Arab descent and they believed that
he shared their anti-Jewish sentiments, the Iranians covertly
funneled money to Mr. Menem for many years in the hope that
he would be elected president and pursue policies favorable
to Iran, Mr. Mesbahi said.
But after he took office he enraged the Muslim countries that
hoped to take advantage of his rise. Mr. Menem maintained
good relations with the United States, did not sell weapons
or advanced technology to Iran, Libya or Syria, and he became
the first Argentine head of state to visit Israel.
After the community center attack, Mr. Menem had the case
given to an investigative magistrate, Judge Juan Jose
Galeano. But Judge Galeano's conduct of the inquiry, which is
continuing at least on paper, has been so bizarre and brought
so much criticism that he is now himself being investigated
on charges of improper behavior that could lead to his
removal from the bench.
