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October 22, 2004/Cheshvan 7 5765, Vol. 57, No. 8
New prosecutor tackles AMIA case
FLORENCIA ARBISER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - The trial of five Argentines accused of complicity in the 1994 bombing of Buenos Aires' main Jewish community center ended in their acquittal, but the investigation into the attack is continuing.
A new department - the Anti-Terrorist Fiscal Unity - is expected to begin investi-gating the case by the end of October.
The prosecutor in charge of the new department, Alberto Nisman, showed enthusiasm and high expectations in an interview with JTA.
The attorney general's appointment of the 40-year-old prosecutor - made a few months ago, even before the trial of the suspected accom-plices was over - is being taken as a sign of President Nestor Kirchner's determi-nation to get to the bottom of the AMIA bombing, which killed 85 people and wounded 300. Kirchner also opened secret state security files, gave security agents permission to testify in the case and agreed to fund the new office.
Nisman will work closely with Argentine intelligence services and a Special Investigations unit of the Justice Department on the AMIA case. His findings will be reported to the new judge in charge of the case, Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, since former investigative judge Juan Jose Galeano was dropped for misconduct such as bribing a witness - and may soon face a political trial himself.
Nisman was the trial prosecutor at the oral trial of a car mechanic and four former police officers accused of being accomplices to the attack. They were acquitted in September after a 10-year investigation that included a three-year trial.
The few certainties left after that trial are that a car was used to bomb the AMIA building and that at some point it passed through the hands of mechanic Carlos Telleldin.
Nisman says he is especially committed to the AMIA investigation.
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