Argentine justice: Iran - terrorist state

Argentine justice determined on Friday that the bombings against the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the Israeli Mutual Aid Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires in 1994 were ordered by Iran. This decision was hailed as "historic" by the local Jewish community, according to the media and some judicial sources, AFP informs on Friday.

The decision of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation II also designates the Shiite movement Hezbollah as the author of the attack, declares Iran as a "terrorist state" and qualifies the attack against AMIA as a "crime against humanity".

"Hezbollah undertook an operation that responded to a political, ideological, revolutionary plan and under the mandate of a government, a state," Judge Carlos Mahiques, one of the three magistrates who gave the verdict, said on Radio Con Vos, referring to Iran .

The two attacks targeted the Jewish community in Argentina in Buenos Aires, in 1992 against the Israeli embassy (29 dead) and in 1994 against the AMIA building (85 dead), the bloodiest attack in the history of this country.

The judges' verdict comes in parallel proceedings on the attacks themselves, following the appeal of the convictions for obstructing the investigation, by a judge and a former head of the intelligence services.

At the same time, the judges established that the motivation of the two attacks, even if multiple, responds to the foreign policy of the Peronist (liberal) president at that time, Carlos Menem (1989-1999).

"They originate mainly in the government's unilateral decision, motivated by a change in our country's foreign policy between late 1991 and mid-1992, to cancel three contracts for the supply of nuclear material and technology concluded with Iran." it says in a parallel verdict, consulted by AFP, which reviews the irregularities committed during the investigation.

"The verdict is historic, unique in Argentina, we owe it not only to Argentina: we owe it to the victims," said Jorge Knoblovitz, president of the delegation of the Argentine Israeli association, on LN+ television.

Also, the verdict "paves the way for a complaint to the International Criminal Court, to clearly establish that the Iranian state is a terrorist state," added Knoblovitz.

Under these circumstances, statements 10 days ago by Ayatollah Ali Khameni and Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi that Israel had violated international law by bombing the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, seem full of hypocrisy as long as Iran had previously , 32 years ago, exactly the same, when he sponsored the bombing by Hezbollah militants of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, a South American country whose magistrates did not hesitate to categorize Iran as a terrorist state.