Foreign minister Héctor Timerman has launched a strong defence of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, asserting that the document is the only way to discover who was responsible for the AMIA bombing in 1994.
Backing the agreement, the minister affirmed that the Memorandum opened the way for the Argentine justice system to interrogate suspects in Tehran, and secure justice for victims and families affected by the deadly attack.
«[The Memorandum] contains the most important clause asked for by the victims, that the case judge Canicoba Corral would be able to question the suspects subject to the Interpol red alerts,» Timerman held in an interview today with TV Pública.
«Nobody can be judged in absentia in Argentina, and Iran has the right to not extradite.
«Convincing Iran was no easy task because it meant allowing the judge to travel and question [the suspects]. The possibility of the judge going to Tehran was the only way for the case to advance,» he underlined.
Arguing that «even the pope celebrated» when the agreement was signed, Timerman criticised opposition politicians for attacking President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s decision to announce the Memorandum via Twitter. He also held that the idea that Argentina was covering up crimes committed by Iranian nationals was first proposed by holdout investors in the United States.
«It was the vulture funds that put forward the idea of linking Cristina and the Argentine government with a terrorist state, long before the late prosecutor [Alberto] Nisman and the Argentine opposition,» he fired.
«That is when a series of meetings began in which certain individuals in Argentina and from the US extreme-right started to attack the countries which have popular governments in Latin America.»
Source: Buenos Aires Herald