Argentinian prosecutors have requested an arrest warrant for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
Khamenei, who ascended to his position in 1989, was Iran’s leader at the time of the attack. It killed 85 people and was, at the time, the single deadliest attack against Diaspora Jews since the Holocaust. An Argentine court ruled last April that Iran and Hezbollah were behind the attack.
The lead prosecutor in the case, Sebastián Basso, argued in an Argentinian federal court that Khamenei was behind the decision to carry out the attack, and he did not have immunity from prosecution, Argentine newspaper Clarín reported Wednesday.
“It is the national judicial authorities who have the duty and the power to judge those responsible, regardless of their location and the social and political position they occupy in the territories where they reside,” said Basso, according to Clarín. He cited both Argentine and international law in his arguments.
Basso said that Khamenei “led the decision to carry out a bomb attack in Buenos Aires in July 1994 and issued executive order (fatwa) 39 to carry it out. It is also undeniable that Khamenei has always been, and continues to be, the main supporter of groups with military capabilities such as Hezbollah,” according to Clarín. Khamenei has previously denied allegations of Iran’s involvement in the attack.
Previous prosecutors had said Khamenei could claim immunity for the charges. More broadly, Basso’s request signifies Argentina’s shifting approach to Iran’s role in the AMIA attack, which it had allegedly once tried to downplay before last April’s ruling.
In 2013, Argentina took steps to jointly investigate the attack with Iran. Basso’s predecessor, Alberto Nisman, was assassinated in 2015, hours before he was set to present evidence that a former Argentine president had covered up Iran’s involvement in the bombing.
In 2021, Iran appointed two men to its government who were implicated in the bombing.
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