Argentinian prosecutor suicided over government cover up of Iran outrage?

[David Guyatt]

Argentine prosecutor who accused Cristina Kirchner over 1994 bombings found dead

Alberto Nisman, who on Monday was due in parliament to present his case against president Cristina Kirchner, found dead days after warning "I could end up dead because of this"

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Alberto Nisman,left, was due to present his case against Mrs Kirchner, right, on Monday afternoon Photo: EPA & Reuters






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By Harriet Alexander

10:00AM GMT 19 Jan 2015
Follow


A prosecutor who has accused President Cristina Kirchner of covering up Iran's alleged involvement in the country's worst terrorist attack has been found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment hours before he was due to present his findings.

Alberto Nisman was discovered lying dead in his bathroom in the early hours of Monday morning, with a handgun by his side. Initial reports suggested suicide.

The veteran prosecutor had spent the past two years compiling a 300-page case on the 1994 bombings of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building (AMIA), which killed 85 people. Iran has long been suspected as being behind the bombings.

Mr Nisman has accused Mrs Kirchner and her foreign minister, Hector Timerman, of attempting to "erase" Iran's role in the attack, in return for favourable oil deals.

"The president and her foreign minister took the criminal decision to fabricate Iran's innocence to sate Argentina's commercial, political and geopolitical interests," he said.

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Mr Nisman said he wanted to question them both, and was waiting for a judge to decide whether there was a case for the president and foreign minister to answer. Administration officials dismissed the charges as "ridiculous", and Iran has always denied that it colluded with Hizbollah to carry out the deadly attack.
No one has yet been arrested in connection with the bombing.
Mr Nisman was due on Monday afternoon to present his case against Mrs Kirchner and other senior figures to the Argentine parliament's committee on criminal law (Comisión de Legislación Penal).
He was found by his mother, who had tried on Sunday to get in contact with her son. When she failed, she went to his 13th floor apartment, in the smart docklands district of the capital, Puerto Madero. The flat was locked from the inside, so a locksmith was called.
"We're asking for caution while we wait for more information," said fellow prosecutor Viviana Fein, one of the first to arrive at the scene. "In the coming days we will know what happened. We found a weapon."
Clarin, one of Argentina's leading opposition publications, reported that just a few days earlier, he had told the newspaper, "I could end up dead because of this."
Mr Nisman, in a separate TV interview, had also been considering agreeing to have his security detail increased.

.

[Magda Hassan]

I'm not buying the Kirchner connection. There have huge pressures on her government, as on her husband's government previously, as they don't play the dance with Washington. Yes, they have moved closer to Iran but Israel still has major investments there including some with her son. I would not trust Clarin newspapers either any more than I'd trust a Murdoch rag. I'll check with some Argentian friends who will know more about this when they return in a few weeks. But for now I am not buying it at all.

[Peter Lemkin]

What Magda says about Kirchner might well be true, however, the death does seem a contrived 'suicide'.....perhaps he is a patsy - made to not only make her look bad, but look like she had him murdered....just thinking out loud..::fortuneteller::

[Magda Hassan]

Looks like others are not buying the Kirchner connection either. Here is a run down of some alternatives.

Who benefits from the death of Nisman?

Juan Carlos Romero López 01/19/2015 Who benefits Nisman death? 2015-01-19T15: 19: 29 + 00: 00 Policy Argentina

The prosecutor Alberto Nisman found dead in his luxury apartment in Puerto Madero.ner connection either. Here is a run down of some alternatives



Was kept for ten security personnel in a building next-generation full of cameras and the main doors and service inside and closed with the keys.
Justice determine the cause of death, but if we make a prospective analysis simply about who would suit his death can agree that death benefits:
Magneto and Grupo Clarin at war with the government over the media law.
The daily La Nación for its defaulted debt of 300 million to the Treasury.
A Mauricio Macri as presidential candidate for the opposition.
A Sergio Massa as presidential candidate for the opposition.
A Jorge Lanata that facilitates their destituyentes scripts (his rating given about Nisman extremely critical about the action of tax)
The chorus of dependent destabilizing librettos of Clarin and La Nacion Group faced death with the National government journalists.
The state of Israel which thus buries his role in covering up the attack
When the US government for the same reason.
A tax means of neoliberalism all over the world who oppose the policies of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in defense of financial minority that govern their countries with an adjustment after another.
A convicted murderers.
A Sociedad Rural Argentina.
A displaced spies SI.
Given this list may be expanded would ask who got hurt in which case two clearly affected:
The Argentine government
The Argentine people and retirees, beneficiaries of social plans, the scientists repatriated their children in public schools receive their netbook, everyone agreed to a job and left destitute and of course all those who are still waiting to reap the benefits the more inclusive government in history.
To all hurts, no doubt, and it harms all who are tired of being ruled by mafia minorities

[David Guyatt]

Hhmmm.

Alberto Nisman shooting: Journalist Damian Pachter flees Argentina in fear for his life after breaking the story



Reports say the journalist has gone to Israel after his phone was tapped

ANDREW BUNCOMBE

NEW YORK

Sunday 25 January 2015

The journalist credited with being the first to report the shooting death of a controversial Argentine prosecutor has fled the country, saying that he feared for his life. On Sunday night he arrived in Israel.

Damian Pachter, a journalist with the Buenos Aires Herald, had written about the death of Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor whose body was found just hours before he was due to testify to politicians over allegations he had made that the country's president had derailed an inquiry into a notorious bomb attack.
Officials initially said they believed Mr Nisman had taken his own life. But then President President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner the person whom Mr Nisman had levelled allegations at and other officials said his death was not suicide. The president's chief of staff said it was believed rogue' agents had killed Mr Nisman.
Damian Pachter leaving Argentina after he said he feared for his life
On Saturday, Mr Pachter told website Infobae that he had fears for his own safety. "I'm leaving because my life is in danger. My phones are tapped," he said, according to Reuters.
The website carried a photograph of Mr Pachter, wearing a cap and carrying sunglasses, at the airport before he boarded an Aerolineas Argentinas flight. Telam, an Argentine state-run news agency, reported that the flight was bound for neighbouring Uruguay.
"I'm going to come back to this country when my sources tell me the conditions have changed. I don't think that will be during this government," Mr Patcher told Infobae.
The Buenos Aires Herald said that Mr Pachter had left on a Montevideo-bound Aerolineas Argentinas flight at 6:58am from Jorge Newbery Metropolitan Airpot. He had left the offices of the newspaper in a hurry on Thursday afternoon, it said.
Alberto Nisman was found dead at his Puerto Madero home
On Sunday evening, Mr Pachter was seen arriving at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Reports said he has Israeli citizenship.
The management of Mr Pachter's newspaper's parent company, Grupo Ámbito, expressed concern about the situation and said it was looking forward to speaking with him and assisting him in any way necessary. The journalist has been working for the paper's website.
The newspaper said none of the senior editors who worked with Mr Pachter were aware of any threats being made to him and that he had not expressed concern about his well being.
Mr Nisman was found dead in his flat in Buenos Aires a week ago with a single gunshot wound to his head. The following day he was due to speak to members of parliament about claims he had made that President Kirchner had conducted secret negotiations with Iran through non-diplomatic channels, offering to cover up the involvement of Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre.
The attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AIMA) left 85 dead and hundreds injured. Iran has always denied involvement, despite formal charges by Argentine. Mr Nisman said Ms Kirchner wanted to protect Iranian officials because she was desperate to start start swapping grain for much-needed oil from Iran.
He had been scheduled to appear before Congress the following day to answer questions about his allegation. His death, and the subsequent storm of conspiracy theories, around it have rocked Argentina.
Argentina suspects rogue agents from its own intelligence services were behind Mr Nisman's death. The government said last week it believed Mr Nisman's allegations and his death were linked to a power struggle at Argentina's intelligence agency and agents who had recently been fired.

[Peter Lemkin]

Damian Pachter, who fled for fear of his life said rather cryptically that he felt the murder would never be solved. I wonder if that is a hunch, or he knows something..... At this point, almost no one now believes it was suicide.

[Magda Hassan]

From Otto at Inca Kola News a long time observer of things South American.

A logical and cogent suicide thesis for Alberto Nisman
Posted: 25 Jan 2015 07:40 AM PST
The latest we know, as of this Sunday morning, is that the day before his death and just before asking his work colleague Lagomarsino to lend him his pistol (the 100% confirmed weapon of death), Alberto Nisman also asked one of the police officers on protection duty around his apartment building to lend him his gun, which the officer refused to do. Nisman again used the same line, that he wanted one to carry in his car for a few days until he bought a gun for himself.


Which again nudges the evidence towards suicide, though I want to make plain as I did yesterday that there's no proof of this yet and we're talking possibles versus probables, not black versus white certainties. We shouldn't discard any hypothesis yet. But as suicide now seems more likely than it did just a few days ago when the world was quick to shout and scream and accuse the CFK government of killing an enemy, consider this:

• There was some sort of emergency that got him to cut short his vacation with his daughter in Europe, hand over her charge to his ex-wife and bring him quickly back to Argentina in the days before his death.
  

• He was due to give evidence to support his accusations against the CFK government the day after his death, but his dossier had already been deposed and opened to authorities and judiciary (its contents are now being revealed, striptease-style, to the general public). As soon as it was available (three or four days before his death) there was immediate pushback from both pro-government and (relatively) neutral bodies who spotted false information and obvious contradictions in his version of events. One that's been widely reported is how Nisman claimed he had been given key evidence about supposed intelligence officers, but in fact (and in proven fact now) those people are not and have never been members of the intelligence services.
  

• So, let us imagine you have a less than perfect personal life. Let's also imagine you've been working under great pressure, in terms of workload and of psychological pressure from government enemies, for two years on a case you think shows major corruption in your current government (up to and including the President of your country). Let's imagine that things come to a head, you complete your work, you're satisfied with your job done, you hand in this national-level important case file...and then suddenly the whole thing blows up in your face because one of the most basic elements on which you based your argument is shown, with very little room for error, to be false. That, ladies and gentlemen, is years of work down the drain.
  

• And on top of that, in one day's time you have to go to the nation's Congress, stand up and defend your case and reiterate your accusations when you already know that the ground has been taken from under your feet and when the opponents ask you about the contradictions, you're going to flounder and fail in front of them. And your personal life is a mess.
  

Anyway, that's the basic thesis for suicide here and I'm fully aware it doesn't cover all angles. For example why is there no suicide note (as either one hasn't been found as yet, or if it has we haven't been told about it)? No idea, but as suicide of this type is a wholly selfish and egocentric act, people in that mental position feel no obligation to anyone else and there doesn't have to be a note, not even to your most loved ones. I'm not saying the above is the answer to the whole thing, not at all. But it is addressed to those who say "he can't have killed himself". It's a logical and cogent possibility, like it or not.

PS: Richard Cory, by Edward Arlington Robinson.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

[Peter Lemkin]

Kirchner has dissolved the Argentinian intelligence service. If that is not just in words and they are behind this, one can expect other deaths - perhaps that of Kirchner herself, if she isn't careful. Intelligence agencies don't usually stand down without revenge [they usually don't stand down at all!]. I presume she means re-organizing it with new heads...but her wording was almost about a clean sweep....time will tell. The old timers there were certainly involved in Condor and the disappearances/torture/deaths of leftists et al. in the not so distant past. They would have had or have connections/friends to/with other dirty intelligence agencies in S. America and N. America.... They too might well have had connections to or done the bombing that killed 84. While not an expert on the Argentinian intelligence agency[ies], they no doubt have their modern roots in Peronista times - when Peron was in bed with Nazis...so a bombing of Jews would not be a strange target. Argentina has always had a large Jewish population, as well as a large German population - which was supplemented at the end of WWII with many Nazis - some of who were in and involved with intelligence there. I don't think this is going to fade away anytime soon - and will likely get much worse, before anything gets better. I wonder out loud if this is a way to destabilize the country and put it again under authoritarian rule......

[Magda Hassan]

Yes, I heard this too. Interesting times there. Lets see where the cards fall.

[Magda Hassan]

Dead Argentinian prosecutor drafted arrest warrant for president

Published time: February 04, 2015 00:12 Get short URL

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. (Reuters/Marcos Brindicci)



Tags
History, Intelligence, Iran, Politics, Scandal, South America, Terrorism, Violence

A draft warrant for the arrest of Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has been found at the apartment of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor found dead one day before testifying against Kirchner's alleged role in covering up a deadly bombing.

News of the draft's existence was first reported by the Argentinian newspaper El Clarin, which stated that the warrant was discovered in Nisman's trash after he had been found dead from a gunshot wound on January 18. The warrant also requested the arrest of Argentina's foreign minister, Hector Timerman, according to the New York Times.
El Clarin's initial report sent shockwaves through Argentina, especially when Viviana Fein, the prosecutor in charge of looking into Nisman's death, initially denied that the draft existed. That same day, Kirchner's Chief of the Cabinet, Jorge Capitanich, ripped up a copy of the paper's report in front of journalists and called it "trash."
On Tuesday, however, Fien issued a statement confirming the warrant's existence, saying it had actually been completed back in June 2014. Fien said her original comment on the matter was mistranslated. She also defended her investigation, saying that she is not facing pressure from the government.

Argentine prosecutor had drafted warrant for arrest of country's president http://t.co/PXpvS5VYjm pic.twitter.com/I417kbWMfs
The Independent (@Independent) February 3, 2015

The draft's existence has added another surprising twist to the events unfolding around Nisman's death. Prior to his death, which was initially called a suicide, Nisman was preparing to testify before the national Congress regarding his claims that Kirchner and Timerman were involved in a cover-up of the deadly 1994 bombing at the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association a Jewish cultural center. Eighty-five people were killed in the episode, which is suspected to have involved Iran.
READ MORE: Kirchner calls for Argentine intelligence service overhaul
According to Nisman, Kirchner and Timerman attempted to craft a deal with Iran that would have allowed the accused Iranians to avoid punishment in exchange for a beneficial trade deal. As part of his evidence, Nisman gathered a file nearly 300 pages long of intercepted phone conversations between Argentinian and Iranian officials, and Nisman claimed that the reason the deal fell apart is because officials were unsuccessful in their efforts to have Interpol remove the arrest warrants against the implicated Iranians.
"So, to clear the obstacle, and here is the criminal [aspect], the President [Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner] ordered to divert the investigation, abandoning years of a legitimate demand of justice and sought to free the Iranian imputed [in the case] from all suspicions, contradicting their proved ties with the attack. She decided to fabricate the innocence of Iran'," Nisman said in his files, as cited by the Buenos Aires Herald.

Murdered prosecutor had drafted warrant to arrest Argentina's president http://t.co/V5ANryxTA4 pic.twitter.com/CORdCcAvl4
Talking Points Memo (@TPM) February 3, 2015

If Nisman ever did issue the arrest warrants, the news would have likely plunged Argentina into a major political calamity.
"It would have provoked a crisis without precedents in Argentina," said Sergio Berensztein, a political analyst, to the Times. Referring to the fact that the warrant would have been issued against a sitting president, he said, "It would have been a scandal on a level previously unseen."
For her part, Kirchner has called Nisman's allegations "absurd" and accused the country's intelligence agencies of being involved in a plot against her government. She has also called for a complete overhaul of Argentina's intelligence service.
"They used him while he was alive and then they needed him dead. It is that sad and terrible," she wrote in a letter earlier this month, according to the Buenos Aires Herald.
The allegations by Nisman, who was Jewish himself, sparked widespread uproar in Argentina. He reportedly received death threats by phone and email, and the Times reports that anti-Semitic posters have cropped up in Buenos Aires since his death.
http://rt.com/news/229079-arrest-warrant...president/