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July 26, 2002/Av 17 5762, Vol. 54, No. 45
Iran connection shakes Argentines
SERGIO KIERNAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Argentine Jews hope pressure will build to crack the case of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center here following a New York Times report that former Argentine President Carlos Menem allegedly accepted a $10 million bribe to cover up Iran's responsibility for the attack.
Members of the Jewish community were deluged by calls from friends and relatives July 22 after the Times published on its front page the leaked testimony of a defector from Iranian intelligence.
"Witness C," an Iranian man known as Abdolghassem Mesbahi, testified that Menem received the bribe to cover up Iran's responsibility and deflect the investigation away from the Islamic republic.
The reports were not new - JTA, for example, reported the allegations last January - but the Times' prestige could give the issue renewed momentum.
Argentina's Jewish community has been frustrated by the listless investigation of the 1994 car bombing, which destroyed the AMIA community center, killed 85 people and wounded hundreds.
"This comes to show, again, that many in Argentina have been working actively to cover up the Iranian trail," said Laura Ginzberg, who lost her husband in the bombing and heads the group APEMIA, a group for victims' relatives and survivors.
Ginzberg's group marked the eighth anniversary of the bombing July 18 with a ceremony. Demonstrators displayed a large banner reading, "The Argentine government is the local connection to the bombing."
After a seven-year investigation by federal judge Juan Jose Galeano, the case went to trial in September 2001. Relatives of the victims have harshly criticized Galeano's hand-ling of the investigation.
Galeano interviewed Mesbahi on two occasions in Mexico City, in July 1998 and May 2000. He kept the contents of the interviews a secret, but last year had to release copies to the panel overseeing the trial.
According to his deposition, Mesbahi defected from the Iranian secret service in 1996 and placed himself under German protection.
In his testimony, Mesbahi described an extensive Iranian intelligence network in South America. The net-work's main task was gunrunning and influencing Muslims in the region.
Mesbahi said Buenos Aires was the regional headquarters for the organization and that the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires provided support for a cell that bombed the Israeli Embassy here on March 17, 1992, killing 28 people.
The same happened with the bombing of the AMIA community center, Mesbahi said.
After each bombing, Iran sent commercial missions to Buenos Aires and trade increased exponentially, Mesbahi told investigators.
It was not the only payoff, said Mesbahi, who claimed that Menem received Iranian financial support during his 1989 campaign for president, and after the 1994 bombing received a further $10 million in a Swiss bank account.
The Iranians were interested in Menem, who is of Syrian ancestry, because they believed he shared their dislike of Jews and Israel and would be sympathetic to Iranian interests, the Times said.
Menem denied receiving money from Iran and called the allegations "absurd and politically motivated."
He also said July 23 that he had instructed his lawyers to sue the Times for "libel and slanderous publication."
An Iranian official called the Times report "a journalistic fairy tale" concocted by Zionists.
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