Alberto Nisman's investigation into the charge that President Fernández de Kirchner covered up Iran's involvement in the AMIA bombing is being pursued by a new prosecutor. Photo: TwitterPhoto: Twitter.

The Argentine Federal Prosecutor appointed to examine the accusation that the Argentine government attempted to cover up Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires has announced that he will be pursuing the country’s top leadership over the charge, in a major endorsement of the claims advanced by Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman on the eve of his death last month in suspicious circumstances.

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman are the most prominent names in Gerardo Pollicita’s complaint, described by the Buenos Aires Herald as giving “a green light” to the charges originally made by Nisman before he died. As The Algemeiner reported earlier today, there is a growing conviction in both Argentina and Israel that Iran was also behind Nisman’s death, which the Argentine government is officially treating as a suicide.

In addition to Fernández de Kirchner and Timerman, Pollicita also charged several of their main political allies, including Luis D’Elia, a former member of the cabinet of Néstor Kirchner (Fernández de Kirchner’s late husband and predecessor in office) Andrés Larroque, a parliamentarian, former prosecutor Héctor Yrimia and Allan Bogado, a suspected member of Argentina’s state intelligence service.

The Argentine government immediately scorned Pollicita’s announcement. Anibal Fernandez, a spokesman for Fernández de Kirchner, said that moving the case forward was a “clear maneuver to destabilize democracy” but that ultimately “it has no legal value. It does not matter.”

Pollicita’s complaint charged that the Iran cover-up was “orchestrated and operated by the highest authorities of the Argentine government,” Argentine newspaper Clarin reported.

Eamonn MacDonagh, a political analyst based in Buenos Aires who has written widely on the AMIA atrocity, told The Algemeiner that Pollicita’s decision underlined the credibility of Nisman’s original accusations.

“Compared to Nisman, Pollicita is a relative unknown,” MacDonagh said. “Nobody would have been surprised if he had sat on Nisman’s complaint for a few months, before quietly junking it. The fact that he didn’t, despite the government’s best efforts to dismiss Nisman outright, strongly suggests that there is a case to pursue here.”

MacDonagh added that it would be very difficult for Fernández de Kirchner and her allies to portray Pollicita as an agent beholden to foreign powers. The president had attempted to do precisely this with Nisman, asserting without evidence that the Special Prosecutor had traveled to Europe to receive instructions on how to proceed with the case against her.

“Pollicita has no international profile, so accusing him of working for the CIA or the Mossad will look frankly absurd,” MacDonagh said.