Former Argentine foreign minister Hector Timerman in 2015. Photo: Reuters//Marcos Brindicci.

Hector Timerman, the ex-foreign minister of Argentina who became embroiled in scandal as a result of his role in a plot aimed at covering-up Iran’s role in the bombing of a Jewish community center, has died at 65.

Timerman, who was Jewish, was former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s foreign minister from 2010-2015, during which time he helped negotiate a deal with Iran exonerating it from responsibility for the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in 1994, which killed 85 people.

Jewish groups and prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who investigated the bombing and fingered Iranian agents as the culprits, deemed the deal a cover-up. Nisman was preparing a case against Kirchner and Timerman when he was found dead in 2015. Initially officials claimed it was suicide, but Nisman’s death was later ruled a murder by an official investigation. Thus far, no one has been arrested in connection to his death.

Last year, Kirchner and Timerman were indicted for their role in the cover-up, which was deemed treason by authorities. The judge’s ruling was based on Nisman’s investigation. The inquiry found that in 2013 Timerman had traveled to Aleppo, Syria in secret and signed the agreement with Iran at a meeting hosted by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

In March 2018, Kirchner, Timerman, and 10 close aides were ordered to stand trial over the deal. Judge Claudio Bonadio found that Timerman, along with the others, had colluded with the Iranians “to the detriment of justice, the victims, and punishment of the accused.”

Timerman’s brother, Javier, said his sibling’s death was caused by cancer.