Killing The Evidence

"We're used to things in Argentina remaining in the dark."
"The investigation needs to be quick and transparent."
Gabriela Michetti, opposition politician, Buenes Aires, Argentina

"The president and her foreign minister took the criminal decision to fabricate Iran's innocence to sate Argentina's commercial, political and geopolitical interests."
Alberto Nisman, Argentinian federal prosecutor

A woman holds a sign reading 'Justice, justice, justice for the death of prosecutor Nisman' during a demonstration in front of the National Congress in Buenos Aires on January 19, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/Juan Vargas)

Argentinians find themselves back in a very uncomfortable place, as though history has returned itself to the present, with the political corruption and violence that exemplified the years of brutal rule under the dictatorship of Juan Peron. A federal prosecutor, accusing top government officials, including Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of conspiracy with Iran to deflect accusations of terrorist activity in exchange for energy provisions to aid the country's economy.

The mystery of who was behind the July 18, 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association where 85 people were killed and over 200 wounded was never clear enough to bring justice in the atrocity. It was suspected that the Islamic Republic of Iran was involved, but never validated by any evidence sufficient to put closure to the horrendous event until 2006 when Alberto Nisman  and Marcelo Burgos accused Iran of directing the Hezbollah carrying out the bombing.

Alberto Nisman had been appointed by President Kirchner's husband Nestor, president before her, to investigate the atrocity and find evidence of the terrorist attack's actors. After his ten-year investigation he was on the cusp of explaining the criminal complaint he filed last week against the president and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman along with others, for complicity in withholding the identity of those involved.

A man walks over the rubble left after a bomb exploded at the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association in Buenos Aires, on July 18, 1994 -- Ali Burafi / AFP / Getty Images

"It's very difficult to find somebody that has as much knowledge of the case as he, and somebody who can take it forward" said Leonardo Jmlenitsky, president of AMIA, concerned that Mr. Nisman's death, declared by his own hand, could jeopardize the future of the investigation of the bombing, the country's worst terrorist attack. Mr. Nisman's work was irreplaceable. It is feared the evidence he amassed will be lost.

He was found shot to death in his bathroom by his mother who had been asked to come along with the guards that had been posted to protect him in response to death threats, and who had become alarmed that he hadn't emerged from his apartment, and they had been unable to contact him. Argentina's political opposition were shocked at news of his death a day before he was to appear to explain the charges he had levelled.

The ten federal police officers tasked to protect him, unable to contact him by telephone, called his family, but his mother had been unable to unlock the apartment door since a key was left in the lock on the inside. There were no witnesses, no suicide note was found, according to the prosecutor now assigned to investigate Mr. Nisman's death, shot through the head at close range. The autopsy was inconclusive; neither verifying nor denying that he had been murdered as charged by many who refuse the official explanation of death by suicide.

He spoke of threats in an interview last week. At the time he had said: "With Nisman around or not, the evidence is there". Which is yet to be seen. Evidence that would prove the president and others in the administration conspired to protect the Islamist terrorists who were involved in the AIMA atrocity. The government's recent agreement with Iran claimed as a vehicle for immunity from prosecution by the country's Jewish community and the political opposition is yet to be proven.

The question is, can it be proven without Mr. Nisman's presence and his confidently deft handling of the evidence he claimed to have amassed? And, given the events of the last few days, will it ever be proven that the man who had no reason to commit himself to death, a man who held an explosive situation in his two hands, a man who spoke of the possibility he might be killed for what he knew, did not kill himself?