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July 18, 2017 5:08 pm
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US Government Mourns AMIA Bombing Victims, Investigator Alberto Nisman, on 23rd Anniversary of Iran-Perpetrated Atrocity

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avatar by Ben Cohen

The aftermath of the bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, July 18, 1994. Photo: File.

The US State Department marked Tuesday’s 23rd anniversary of the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires with a statement highlighting Iran’s role in the atrocity and urging transparency in the investigation into the death of Alberto Nisman, the Argentine special prosecutor who exposed Tehran’s culpability for the attack.

“The United States shares the sorrow of the families of those who perished in the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building in 1994,” Heather Nauert, the spokesperson for the State Department, said. “For the past 23 years, we have joined the Argentine government and victims of this terrorist attack in seeking justice. We continue to believe that the Iranian government has a responsibility to cooperate fully with Argentine authorities in bringing the perpetrators to justice.”

Nauert then paid tribute to Nisman, who was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment in January 2015, shortly before his planned public exposure of the collusion between Tehran and the former government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in exonerating the Iranian and Hezbollah operatives responsible for the bombing.

“On this occasion, we also reflect upon the significant contributions of prosecutor Alberto Nisman in investigating the AMIA bombing, and note the importance of clarifying the circumstances of his tragic death,” Nauert said.

While the lack of judicial progress in the AMIA case has been a regular feature of annual State Department reports on Argentina, Tuesday’s statement from the State Department suggested that Iran’s continued harboring of the suspects in the bombing is another factor in the Trump administration’s growing impatience with the Tehran regime. Eighty-five people died and hundreds more were wounded when a truck packed with explosives rammed into the AMIA building in downtown Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994.

The AMIA anniversary was solemnly marked in Israel, by international Jewish organizations and by Argentina itself. In Buenos Aires, Argentine Cabinet Chief Marcos Peña told a gathering of parliamentarians hosted by the Latin American Jewish Congress that the Memorandum of Understanding between Kirchner and the Iranians signed in 2013 — which proposed a joint Argentine-Iranian investigation into the AMIA bombing — had been permanently consigned to history by the current government of President Mauricio Macri.

Referring to Nisman’s case, Peña said that “there must be no impunity. We need to know what happened and who is responsible for his death.” Over the last week, the Argentine press has once again been abuzz with reports that the leaders of the former government — including Kirchner and her foreign minister, Hector Timerman — will face criminal charges over Nisman’s death before the year is out.

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