When news broke of the death, by gunshot wound to the head, of Alberto Nisman [4] - the prosecutor who was due within hours to deliver testimony implicating the Argentine President in covering up the investigation into a bombing in 1994 - it seemed oddly quick for police to rule it suicide within hours (especially after his earlier concerns that "I could end up dead because of this.") Today's news from The Buenos Aires Herald [5] that the "unexpected result" of forensic analysis of Nisman’s body confirmed that there were no traces of gunpowder on his hands suggests (despite experts still proclaiming it does not rule out suicide) has prompted many questions over just how he died. Even the US has offered help...
As The Buenos Aires Herald reports, [5] No gunpowder traces found on Nisman’s hands, tests ordered on alleged weapon...
The forensic analysis on AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s body confirmed that there were no traces of gunpowder on his hands. However, experts explained that it does not contradict suicide hypothesis.
Prosecutor Viviana Fein, who leads the investigation of Nisman’s death, said this was not an “unexpected result” and that it “does not rule out the possibility that Nisman had fired the gun himself.”
...
"When the weapon is fire, since the quantity [of gunpowder] for an electronic sweep test is so small, the test could not give a positive result," Fein underlined.
...
The investigator, with consent from judge Emma Palmaghini, subsequently ordered new studies on the .22 calibre pistol to be carried out. The gun will be fired by a different person whose hand will undergo the same test as Nisman's, to determine whether it leaves gunpowder residue.
"There are so many tests that can be ordered in this case, we must wait for blood studies found on the gun and on the scene to yield results," Fein added. She also gave some information on the Prosecutors' office employee who had lent the weapon to Nisman shortly before his death.
...
"We have not taken any other weapon from doctor Nisman's home, nor from safes, drawers or any other places they could be appropriately stored. Right now no other weapon has been found or taken."
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US can help:
- *U.S. EMBASSY SAID TO OFFER ARGENTINA ASSISTANCE IN NISMAN PROBE
But protests continue...
[6]
CNN adds... [7]
Government officials called it a suicide, but theories of something more sinister arose immediately.
Protesters took to the streets Monday night near the presidential palace -- the Casa Rosada -- waving Argentine flags and holding signs proclaiming, "Yo soy Nisman," or "I am Nisman."
...
For protesters in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo, the prosecutor's death struck a deeper chord.
"The killing of Nisman will mobilize the Argentine people to put an end to the corruption, to end this state of disaster that we live in here in Argentina," one protester said.
One woman compared the country's politicians to the mafia, and another said that Argentine democracy was not a democracy anymore.
President Fernandez has responded...
"Suicide provokes, in all cases, first: disbelief, and then: questions. What was it that led a person to make the terrible decision to take his own life?" Fernandez wrote in a lengthy letter she posted on her Facebook page.
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