The only certainty the Department of Justice has about the attack that detonated the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires 30 years ago was that behind the bomb was a bgroup of terrorists called Islamic Jihad, the armed wing of Hezbollah. The two arrest warrants ordered in 2015 by the Supreme Court for Lebanon Hussein Mohammad Ibrahim Suleiman and José Salman El Leda, Colombia, and a series of recommendations abroad, became the last move recorded in a case that had never been arrested. As time goes by, it seems more and moredifficult to move forward.
All of this happened 30 years ago. On March 17, 1992, at 14.47, the building on Arroyo 916 Street, where the headquarters of the Israeli Embassy operates, exploded. Police initially talked about 29 deaths, but only 22 deaths were identified, including 9 embassy employees and 9 officials, 3 masons and 2 plumbers, taxi drivers and 3 pedestrians, clergy from neighboring churches, and 3 elderly people staying in a residence several meters away.Their names were depicted on a plaque on a dry square that grew up at the site of the attack.
It was a shipment of a pentry and Trinitrottoluene mounted behind a Ford F 100 van that exploded in a building as the Supreme Court established at the end of 1999. The van was stopped in a parking lot where Dakota SA ran in Cerritos between Junkal and Arroyo. At the time of the explosion, the vehicle passed through Arroyo and exploded on the sidewalk when it arrived at the embassy. “It was a scene of war,” said more than once by rescuers who came to the area and did not understand what happened. Argentina entered the world terrorist scene, and two years later, with an attack with an almost traced methodology, another bomb would put an end to the AMIA headquarters and 85 lives.
The Supreme Court was submitted to the Supreme Court because it had a foreign influence. At that time, President Ricardo Levene of that court was in charge of the investigation and delegated a mission to Detective Secretary Alfredo Bisordi until he became a judge of the then new National Chamber of Criminal Destruction in 1992. As in the case of AMIA, the embassy was in the process of renovating.
However, the idea of the rupture was dismissed by the court, which ratified the hypothesis of a vehicle bomb based on the crater in front of the fallen building, the discovery of various parts of the engine of the van and other statements.
The track of Islamic Jihad, the armed arm of Hezbollah, was held in February 1992 on several cables of the Argentine embassy in Lebanon, referring to the impact of the violent death of Abbas Musawi, the Minister of Hezbollah, as explained by the Supreme Court itself, the former criminal secretary Esteban Kanebari.
The court posted a request in the newspaper An Nahar in Beirut, Lebanon, confirming that the group itself claimed responsibility for the case.In addition, the information was confirmed by a statement by an Argentine diplomat in the country the day after the incident occurred.
In this context, under the old Criminal Procedure Act, the Supreme Court tried Imad Mughniyah to request an investigation and ordered an international arrest. According to information provided by the US State Department, the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, and SIDE, Mughniyah was in charge of central and external security units in Hezbollah and was in charge of Islamic jihad at the time of the attack.
The investigation deepened the link between Hezbollah and suspected persons allegedly engaged in commercial activities in an area known as the “Triple Border”. Even in the case of an attack on the AMIA, the figure of the investigated Samuel Salman El Reda Reda appears.
According to the case of the embassy, in 1992, his brother José Salman El Reda Reda was arrested and charged with Rosario's federal court for kidnapping a significant amount of counterfeit dollars known as “super dollars” to fund terrorist activities. The Supreme Court also ordered the occupation of José Salman El Reda.
At that time, another clue resolved in the investigation of SIDE's research pointed to reports from other countries of intelligence agencies: Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman, an operational agent in Hezbollah in June 2001, was arrested in the Kingdom of Jordan and traveled to São Paulo in 1991, and reported that he received explosives transported to Argentina by bus from Foz do Iguazu in early 1992. He said that the explosives were used in attacks on Israeli embassies. Transactions were made with various security forces to confirm this information It was issued, appealed to other countries and traded to intelligence agencies. There is no certainty about that version.
In the AMIA case, the famous witness “C” could not be recognized when he referred to Jaffar Saadat Ahmad Nia, who was designated as an Iranian diplomat responsible for logistics in an act of terrorism. He worked as a civilian officer at the Iranian embassy in Brazil between June 8, 1991 and December 28, 1993. These signs indicate that he visited Argentina between March 16 and 18, 1992, but eventually denied the information.
In 2006, the father of Carlos Susevich, one of the victims who died today, came out as a complainant and asked him to declare the crime indescribable. The court did not accept this claim, but reaffirmed that the case would continue to be made public while searching for suspects. And on December 20, 2006, he repeated the international arrest order of Imad Mugnija and José Salman El Reda.
According to news reports, it is reported that Mughniyah died in a Damascus attack on February 12, 2008 in a car bomb explosion. His death was confirmed by a copy of the death certificate sent by Interpol to the UFI AMIA, which was later submitted to the embassy case.
The state of the case became relevant when, after the death of Prosecutor Alberto Nisman in 2015, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner publicly demanded what state the file was in. Today, due to this request from the Vice President, Ricardo Lorenzetti, the then Supreme Court President, Ricardo Lorenzetti pointed out the following: “For the Embassy of Israel, in 1999, long before the current court was established, there is a sentence. The sentence determined who the culprit was. And he was guilty of the Hezbollah group, which is part of the Islamic jihad. This ruling was published and agreed by the parties, so as a court we cannot correct issues that have already been accepted and judged.”
The phrase “res judicada” suggested that the case was closed, but a few days later the Judicial Information Center (ICJ) issued an explanation explaining what happened in the case and confirmed that the investigation was still open. Six months later, the court repeated the occupation of El Leda Leda and ordered the international occupation of Hussein Mohammad Ibrahim Suleiman. In addition, he asked to declassify the files of the former SIDE in the investigation of the first terrorist attack signed by CFK.
Since then, investigations into the embassy attacks have not made any further progress.A sense of punishment surrounds survivors. Today the victims will be remembered in a new tribute ceremony that will renew the demands of justice.
The victims of this attack are:
Rescano de Albarracin, Escorina, Argentina.I stayed at the San Francisco de Assis Home.
Alia de Aegia followed Celia Heydi.Argentina.I stayed at the San Francisco de Assis Home.
Valdelomar Siles, Carlos Bricklayer. Argentina from Bolivia.
Ben Raphael, David Joel, Israeli diplomat, counselor for the Secretary of the Embassy. Married with two children.
Ben Jib, Eli, an Israeli diplomat, no member of the embassy. Married with two children.
Berenstein of Supaniki, Beatrice Monica, Argentina.I am married to a daughter.Administrative staff at the embassy.
Hayes, Juan Carlos Argentinian. Admira Bilis, priest of the church.
Cacciato, Ruben Cayetano Juan.Argentine.Ford Falcon taxi driver who was driving around Arroyo.
Karmon, Elio Raisrael. Counselor's wife and consular consulate Danny Kamon.Mother of five children.Administrative staff of the embassy.
Droblas, Marcela Judis Argentina.Executive staff of the Embassy. (Minister of Culture, Rafael Eldad)
Eloson, Andrew. Argentinian.Pedestrian
Rancieri Ronacci, Michelangelo. Uruguay. Pedestrians.
Regizamon Hannibal. Paraguay.Plumber
Machado Castro, Alfred Oscar. Argentina from Bolivia. Bricklayer.
Machado Castro, Freddy Lemberto.Bolivia. Bricklayer.
Mandarini, Francisco.Italian.Plumber.
Meyers, Francisca Eva Elisa, Argentina.I stayed at the San Francisco de Assis Home.
Quirin, Alexis Alexander.Argentinian.Pedestrian
Saienz, Mirta Argentina. Administrative staff of the Embassy. (Ambassador Secretary of Dr. Iztak Shefi)
Sherman of Intrauv, Rachel Argentina.Executive staff of the Embassy.
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