President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has announced that a bill will be sent to Congress ordering the dissolution of the Intelligence Secretariat (SI), calling both parliamentary chambers to special sessions on February 1 to discuss the proposal.
In its place, CFK asserted, a new Federal Intelligence Agency would be created. In the new structure, both the director and deputy director would have to be designated and passed by the Senate, she explained in a television broadcast transmitted across the nation this evening.
«We must start to work on a project to reform the Argentine intelligence system, in order to clear up a system that has not served national interests,» Cristina said.
The head of state asserted that from the moment the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran over the AMIA bombings in 1994 was signed, «you could see that the agreement was being bombarded from the SIDE».
«From there even the most unlikely accusations against this President were intensified. They started to occur at a dizzying pace,» she added, stating that the manoeuvre included «groups of prosecutors, groups of judges, anonymous accusers and journalists who spread them.»
«This led me to the decision to remove agents that had been there since before the coming of democracy.»
The President also announced that the reform bill would also transfer responsibility for wiretaps and other communications monitoring away from the intelligence agency, to the Attorney-General’s Office.
«From now on, any judge or prosecutor who wishes to request a wiretap must go to the Attorney General,» she underlined.
The broadcast marked the first time that the head of state makes a public appearance since the death of lead AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman last Sunday. CFK has limited official activity since suffering a fractured ankle over the holiday season, although she did comment on the prosecutor’s passing via two letters released on social media websites.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald