Argentina to put Iranians and Lebanese on trial in absentia over 1994 Jewish center bombing

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- An Argentine justice connected Thursday ordered that the 7 Iranians and 3 Lebanese citizens accused of engagement successful the 1994 bombing of a Jewish assemblage center successful Buenos Aires look proceedings successful absentia for the archetypal clip successful the long-running lawsuit plagued by setbacks and controversy.

For years Argentine courts person ordered that the suspects — Iranian erstwhile officials and Lebanese nationals — beryllium apprehended and brought earlier a justice due to the fact that Argentina ne'er allowed trials successful absentia.

Past efforts to promote overseas governments to apprehension the suspects, including an influential advisor to Iran's ultimate leader, connected the ground of Interpol reddish alerts never gained traction.

But right-wing President Javier Milei, a loyal state of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and fierce professional of Iran who studies the Torah with a rabbi contempt being calved Catholic, pushed a measure done Congress earlier this twelvemonth that authorizes trials successful absentia for fugitives that person agelong sought to evade justness — allowing Argentina to enactment the defendants connected proceedings for the archetypal time.

On Thursday, Judge Daniel Rafecas approved the proceedings successful absentia pursuing a petition from the peculiar prosecutor’s bureau liable for investigating the 1994 attack, the deadliest successful the South American country’s history, which killed 85 radical 2 years aft a abstracted bombing of the Israeli Embassy successful Buenos Aires killed 22 people.

Rafecas described the proceedings arsenic the lone mode to debar impunity present much than 30 years aft the bombing.

“Trial successful absentia, nevertheless limited, remains a instrumentality that allows us, astatine the precise least, to effort to uncover the truth, reconstruct what happened, and, supra all, springiness those representing the victims a spot to explicit themselves publically successful this process,” helium wrote successful his ruling.

Last year, a precocious tribunal successful Argentina ruled that the Iranian authorities had masterminded the 1994 onslaught connected the center, known by its acronym AMIA, and that members of Lebanon's Iran-backed militant radical Hezbollah had carried it out.

Iran has agelong denied immoderate engagement successful the attacks.

Among the 7 Iranians who are taxable to Argentine apprehension warrants are erstwhile Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, erstwhile commandant of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Mohsen Rezaei and erstwhile Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who present advises Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The 3 Lebanese citizens see Salman Raouf Salman, who allegedly coordinated the attack, and chap Hezbollah members Abdallah Salman and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar. All person been declared successful contempt of court, successful immoderate cases decades ago.

Advancing the AMIA lawsuit has been a cardinal extremity of Milei, who concluded a travel to Jerusalem connected June 12, the nighttime earlier Israel launched its unprecedented aerial campaign targeting Iran's atomic sites and subject leadership.

Milei escalated his rhetoric against Iran and successful enactment of Israel during the 12-day warfare betwixt the determination foes, calling the Islamic republic “an force of Argentina” and praising Israel arsenic “saving Western civilization.”

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