[LINK] "Argentine Judge Said to Find Dead Prosecutor Papers Credible"

[rfmcdonald]

Curioser and curioser. Bloomberg's Pablo Gonzalez and Charlie Devereux report on the developing scandal in Argentina.

The Argentine judge responsible for reviewing the case filed against President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner by prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found dead Jan. 18, considers the allegations credible, according to a person with knowledge of the process.

Judge Ariel Lijo is still analyzing whether the evidence is enough to justify further investigating the allegations that Fernandez and other government officials sought to cover up the alleged involvement of Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center, said the person who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public. He will decide whether to take the case by February, the person said.

Lijo, 46, has read the full 300-page report left by the prosecutor twice and his staff is listening to audio files with phone conversations between Argentine government officials, intelligence agents and current to former Iranian diplomats, the person said. President Fernandez wasn’t recorded in any of the conversations in which government officials and allies say they are speaking on her behalf, the person said.

[. . .]

Argentine prosecutors in 2006 charged Iran and the Hezbollah group with organizing the 1994 bombing and issued eight arrest warrants, one of them for former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Rafsanjani. Seven years later, Fernandez signed a memorandum of understanding with the Iranians to set up a truth commission into the bombing.

According to Nisman, the aim of the accord was for Iranian officials to be taken off Interpol’s wanted list. In exchange, Argentina would export grains and meat to Iran and receive oil.

Nisman said his findings were based on wire taps of telephone conversations between Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian mullah and former cultural attache to the Iranian Embassy in Argentina, Jorge Alejandro Khalil, an Iranian Buenos Aires-based businessman, union leader Luis D’Elia and lawmaker Andres Larroque of Fernandez’s Victory Front alliance.

Argentine intelligence chief Oscar Parrilli said in a letter to a federal judge published Tuesday that the supposed spies mentioned in Nisman’s report had never worked for the agency.

Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, who was also accused by Nisman, called the allegations lies on Jan. 15 and said there was never any attempt to remove Iranian officials from Interpol lists. Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich said today that Nisman’s alleged evidence was “inconsistent.”