Just weeks after the death of Alberto Nisman - the prosecutor who was investigating Argentine President Fernandez' alleged cover-up of an Iranian bombing [4]- it appears the discovery of an arrest warrant for the President at his home has prompted the following [5]:
- *ARGENTINA'S FERNANDEZ CHARGED IN PROBE OF ALLEGED COVER UP: TN
Given her insistence that Nisman's death was not suicide but from a faction within her (now defunct) intelligence unit [6], we can only imagine the level of uncertainty in the nation and the potential for social unrest (or worse) is growing rapidly as the movement supporting Nisman was already surging. Analysts warned that charging Fernandez would be "a scandal on a level previously unseen.”
As The Buenos Aires Herald reports, [7]
Federal Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita has requested to investigate President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman in a case involving an alleged cover-up of Iran's role in the 1994 AMIA bombing.
Giving a green light to a complaint first filed by now later AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, Pollicita presented the report before Judge Daniel Rafefas.
Ruling Victory Front (FpV) lawmaker Andrés Larroque, social leader Luis D’Elía, head of the political group Quebracho Fernando Esteche, ex judge Héctor Yrimia and Allan Bogado have been also charged.
* * *
[8]
As we detailed on the arrest warrant previously, [5]A day after family and friends paid final respects Thursday to the Argentine prosecutor who was found dead after alleging that President Cristina Fernandez agreed to protect those responsible for a 1994 bombing, the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history; more details are emerging of just how far Nisman was willing to go.
Despite, her disbandment of the intelligence agencies, following Fernandez suggestions that rogue intelligence agents orchestrated Nisman’s death to destabilize her administration, but she has not provided details, as The NY Times reports [9],
Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor whose mysterious death has gripped Argentina, had drafted a warrant for the arrest of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, accusing her of trying to shield Iranian officials from responsibility in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center here, the lead investigator into his death said on Tuesday.
The 26-page document, which was found in the garbage at Mr. Nisman’s apartment, also requested the arrest of Héctor Timerman, Argentina’s foreign minister. Both Mrs. Kirchner and Mr. Timerman have repeatedly denied Mr. Nisman’s accusation that they tried to reach a secret deal with Iran [10] to lift international arrest warrants for Iranian officials wanted in connection with the bombing.
The new revelation that Mr. Nisman had drafted arrest warrants for the president and the foreign minister further illustrates the heightened tensions between him and the government before he was found dead on Jan. 18 at his apartment with a gunshot wound to his head. He had been scheduled the next day to provide details before Congress about his accusations against Mrs. Kirchner.
“It would have provoked a crisis without precedents in Argentina,” said Sergio Berensztein, a political analyst, about the impact of the warrants if they had been issued. He acknowledged that previous legal cases had shaken Argentina’s political establishment, but he emphasized that this case involved a request to arrest a sitting president.
“It would have been a scandal on a level previously unseen,” Mr. Berensztein said.
* * *
Some color on the warrant from Clarin.com (via Google Translate) [11]
On folio 65 reads the title "Order of arrest and banned from leaving the country" .
And at page 67 the prosecutor asks "Mr. Justice" available "the CRISTINA FERNANDEZ DE KIRCHNER ELISABET, Héctor Marcos Timerman, of ANDREW LARROQUE (prior processes impeachment, removal or impeachment, as appropriate, under of their conditions of President's Office, Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Deputy -arts. 53, 59, 68, 69 and 70 of the Constitution) " .
And then ordered "the immediate arrest of LUIS ANGEL D'Elia, JORGE ALEJANDRO KHALIL, HECTOR LUIS YRIMIA, FERNANDO esteche and the man known as 'Allan', once it is properly identified" .
...
Nisman gave more information on the latter accused: "... according to the evidence obtained so far, could be Ramón 'Allan' Hector Bogado" , who was linked to the Ministry of Intelligence.
The draft complaint fiscal gives several indications that his accusations against the President was not written at the last moment, as the government tries to install: it is dated, for example, "June 2014".
In the letter which appeared in the household trash, Nisman alert several times about the pressure that could put the accused on the Judiciary.
The prosecutor had advised the judge in this version of your complaint should "exercise extreme precautions" to prevent "maneuvers or stratagems" of the investigation, which described as "affected legal subjects" with a "total lack of scruples" .
* * *
