BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — The Alberto Nisman case must be investigated as a murder, according to the special prosecutor looking into the death of the special prosecutor in the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing.
Prosecutor Eduargo Taiano on Wednesday also identified a suspect in the case: Diego Lagomarsino, an IT employee in Nisman’s office.
Taiano asked the judge handling the Nisman to interrogate Lagomarsino as a participant in an assassination plan. According to the prosecutor, Lagomarsino provided the gun that was used to prepare a fake suicide scenario.
In January 2015, Lagomarsino said he went to Nisman’s apartment to give him a “very old” .22 caliber pistol to protect himself after Nisman expressed fears that he was being targeted by supporters of then-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Hours later, Nisman was found dead by a bullet from that gun fired at point-blank range above his right ear. Lagomarsino has been charged only with lending the pistol to Nisman.
On Wednesday, Taiano asked that the case be formally classified as “homicide,” changing the previous “suspicious death” designation, which is a new twist in the complicated case. The prosecutor requested the new measures after analyzing a report produced in September by forensic investigators from the country’s border patrol guard, or Gendarmerie.
The prosecutor also requested an investigation of the police guards that handled security for Nisman. Four members of the team of 10 guards were charged Wednesday with non-fulfillment of duties.
Nisman’s body was found on Jan. 18, 2015, hours before he was to present evidence to Argentine lawmakers that Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the attack on the Buenos Aires center that left 85 dead and hundreds wounded.
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