Argentina passes a law to compensate victims of the 1994 AMIA bombing. Photo: Wikipedia.

JNS.org– Argentina’s legislature has approved a bill to compensate the victims of the 1994 bombing at the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. The bill passed in the Parliament’s Lower Chamber on Wednesday after being approved in the Senate earlier this month.

According to the bill, the families of the 85 people who were killed and those who suffered serious injuries will receive one-time compensation similar to the compensation paid to victims of Argentina’s military dictatorship and the victims of the Israeli embassy bombing in 1992, said Remo Carolotto, the president of Argentina’s human rights commission, according to AFP.

The passage of the bill comes at a time of heightened controversy surrounding the 1994 attack. Many critics believe the Argentine government has obstructed investigations into the alleged role of Iran in the attack.

On the same day as the passage of the compensation bill, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, who is Jewish, canceled his membership at AMIA, citing AMIA’s “obstructionist actions” with regard to a deal with Iran to investigate the bombing, which AMIA opposes, the Forward reported.

Alberto Nisman, the Jewish prosecutor who was investigating the bombing, was also found dead in his apartment earlier this month just hours before he was supposed to testify that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has interfered in the investigation into the bombing, a charge Kirchner has denied.