Computer technician Diego Lagomarsino today gave a press conference clarifying his movements on the weekend AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead, the first time he has spoken publicly since being charged of lending the investigator a pistol shortly before his passing.
According to investigators the .22 calibre weapon, which is registered in the Prosecutors’ Unit employee’s name, fired the bullet which struck Nisman from point-blank range above the right ear last Sunday. The prosecutor was found dead in the bathroom of his Puerto Madero home just hours before he was due to present his accusations in Congress implicating leading government figures in covering up those responsible for the 1994 AMIA bombing.
«I am not doing well either,» Lagomarsino told reporters alongside his attorney, explaining that he knew Nisman’s daughters and he wished to speak with them before making a public statement.
The technician explained that he received a call from a private number on Saturday afternoon, at around 4.25pm. The caller was Nisman, who asked Lagomarsino to come to his house in Puerto Madero’s Le Parc apartment complex. He added that he identified himself at the front desk of the building, and entered Nisman’s home via the service entrance as was usual.
There, he spoke with the prosecutor about the case. «I am more afraid of being right than being wrong,» Nisman confided, shortly before asking his colleague if he owned a firearm.
«That caught me off-guard, I did not understand it, it is not every day that your boss asks you for a gun,» Lagomarsino affirmed. But Nisman, according to his statements, insisted, saying that he feared for his security.
«I cannot even trust in my own security detail,» he told the employee.
«Do you know what its like when your own children do not want to be with you because they are scared something could happen?»
The technician said that he accepted Nisman’s request, returned home to look for the weapon – where he received another call from the investigator asking him if he had found it – and returned to Le Parc with the .22 pistol in his backpack. Upon arriving to the apartment he gave Nisman some basic security advice, while the prosecutor looked over the weapon.
«Do not worry, I will not use it,» Nisman had told the technician, explaining that he was going to keep the gun stored in the glovebox of his car.
Lagomarsino also noted that he was disturbed by the movements of Nisman’s security detail when he returned to Le Parc, at around 7pm on Saturday evening. «I was very shocked,» he asserted, stating that he had not seen any of the assigned bodyguards when he left the building, but on returning he had noted a security vehicle and one of the guards on the ground floor of the complex.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald