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Memo From Argentina

Twisting Inquiry Into Buenos Aires Bombing Takes New Turn

The aftermath of a suicide bombing at a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in July 1994 that killed 85 people.Credit...Ali Burafi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BUENOS AIRES — For more than two decades, an investigation into the suicide bombing of a Jewish center here in 1994 that killed 85 people has faced setbacks and controversy. It caused an intractable rift between Argentina and Iran. A former president has been put on trial, accused of orchestrating a cover-up. And a prosecutor involved in the case died last year in murky circumstances.

But now, Argentina’s new government is pledging to finally get to the bottom of a case that cost the country about $3.5 million last year alone, and that took on a life of its own, swallowing up many who touched it.

President Mauricio Macri, who took office in December, has revamped the government department assigned to the bombing investigation and has vowed to introduce legislation that would allow for the trial of suspects in absentia.

The question is whether those efforts, which face considerable legal hurdles and political opposition, will translate into lasting results in the long-running case.

The president wants to “re-establish the commitment of the Argentine state” to solving the attack, said Mario Cimadevilla, who has been appointed to head the investigative department.

The unit was created in 2000 to lend support from the executive branch to prosecutors leading the inquiry, for instance by collating evidence from government agencies. In recent years, it had largely been sidelined.

Mr. Cimadevilla has new powers that include the ability to propose legislation and furnish information to investigators working on the death last year of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor overseeing the case, which may shed new light on the bombing. In 2006, Mr. Nisman blamed the bombing on the Iranian government.

Mr. Cimadevilla’s first task has been drafting a bill to try defendants in absentia, which the government expects to send to Congress when it reconvenes in March. If approved, it would allow suspects abroad who refuse to cooperate with the bombing investigation to be tried in Argentina’s courts.

“We don’t want trials to be halted because the defendant isn’t there,” Mr. Cimadevilla said. “That is denying justice.”

Mr. Macri’s opponents have accused him of trying to score political points by seeking to close the case with the swift convictions of eight former officials in Iran whom Mr. Nisman suspected of masterminding the bombing.

Sergio Burstein, whose estranged wife died in the attack, said the government was acting prematurely by drafting the bill when the prosecutors who replaced Mr. Nisman seem far from concluding their investigation and are still trying to glean evidence from a trial involving a former president, Carlos Saúl Menem. Mr. Menem is accused of conspiring to conceal a possible Syrian connection to the bombing.

Alejandro Rúa, a lawyer for Active Memory, a group of victims’ relatives, said Mr. Macri’s administration wanted a verdict. “We don’t want a verdict,” Mr. Rúa said. “We want the truth, and to get to it you have to investigate.”

Others say Mr. Macri’s efforts are designed to endear him to Jewish leaders with whom his party is perceived as having close ties.

The chief Jewish umbrella organization here, known by its acronym, DAIA, supports the idea of a trial in absentia. It presented a similar bill in 2014, and Mr. Cimadevilla said the government’s proposal would draw on that document.

“There needs to be a close to the case; if not, the dead are never going to rest in peace,” Ariel Cohen Sabban, the president of DAIA, said at a recent gathering in a plaza here to commemorate a year since Mr. Nisman’s death.

Mr. Macri does not have a majority in Congress, so he will need to negotiate with lawmakers from other blocs to pass the legislation. He could get some cross-party support, but it is unclear how much political capital he will want to invest in the bill when he is also trying to push through other important measures, said Juan Cruz Díaz, a director at the Cefeidas Group, a political risk analysis firm.

Mr. Nisman, the lead prosecutor on the investigation from 2005 until his mysterious death a year ago from a gunshot to the head, accused the former Iranian officials of authorizing the bombing of the Jewish center and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite movement, of executing it.

Image
Alberto Nisman a prosecutor overseeing the case, died of a gunshot to the head last year.Credit...Juan Mabromata/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Other unproven theories point to Syrian involvement or a so-called local connection, which once involved a former chief of Argentina’s intelligence agency and a group of police officers. These suspects were among 22 people acquitted in 2004, but the ex-intelligence chief, Hugo Alfredo Anzorreguy, is back in court together with Mr. Menem. (At least one fact has been established: Carlos Alberto Telleldín, an Argentine car salesman, was the last known registered owner of the Renault van that was loaded with explosives and driven into the Jewish center headquarters.)

Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed a contentious bilateral pact with Iran in 2013 so a jointly appointed commission could interrogate the Iranian suspects in Tehran. It was unclear how any subsequent trial would have proceeded.

Mrs. Kirchner said the agreement was the only way of enticing Iran to collaborate in the investigation. But Jewish leaders here, some victims’ relatives and the political opposition criticized the arrangement, saying it would be too easy for the Iranians to absolve themselves of a crime committed in Argentina if the investigation was shifted to their own country.

The pact was approved by lawmakers, but it was declared unconstitutional in 2014 by a two-judge panel that ruled it was an overreach of the executive branch into a judicial investigation. The new government recently dropped an appeal by Mrs. Kirchner’s administration of that ruling.

Even if passed, a bill allowing trials in absentia would — like the pact with Iran — face challenges in the courts, experts say. Trials in absentia are not explicitly addressed in Argentina’s Constitution, but they would violate its provisions for due process, said Raúl Gustavo Ferreyra, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Buenos Aires.

However, when the two-judge panel ruled against the pact with Iran, one of them highlighted how the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights once approved the extradition of a defendant from Costa Rica after he was convicted in absentia in France; he was given the right to appeal and a new trial. The Constitution has a provision to incorporate this type of international precedent.

“If you guarantee there can be a full review of the ruling, that would give it constitutional validity,” said Francisco Castex, a professor of criminal law here.

Even if trials eventually proceed, experts note that it is unlikely Iran would turn over citizens convicted in the case.

“It’s inconsequential,” Carlos Escudé, an Argentine political scientist who has written about the bombing investigation, said of the bill. “It’s as if the government is saying, ‘The show must go on.’ But the Iranians would never give themselves up.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: Winding Investigation of Jewish Center Bombing Takes New Turn. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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