New Argentine President to Reopen Nisman Assassination Case
Argentine President-elect Mauricio Macri will replace key leaders in the security and intelligence sectors once he takes ofice on December 10, 2015. Importantly, he has vowed to reopen the investigation into the death of Alberto Nisman, a government special prosecutor charged with the correuption case in which Argentina allegedly agreed with Iran to curtail its investigation into a 1994 bombing of a Jewish synagogue in Buenos Aires, in exchange for significant commercial relationships with Iran.
The day before he was to present his case to Congress, Nisman was apparently assassinated in his home. Now, Patrícia Bullrich, the deputy to whom Nisman was to deliver his testimony in support of indicting President Cristina Kirchner and her foreign minister, and one of the strongest critics of the investigation into Nisman’s death, will become Minister of Security. The Attorney General is also being replaced. Bullrich received the largest number of votes for any deputy in the recent elections.
Cristina Kirchner is likely to be in for a tough time.
See
Leonardo Coutinho, “Mauricio Macri vai pedir uma nova investigação sobre a morte de Alberto Nisman; O presidente eleito na Argentina quer passar a limpo alguns dos episódios mais obscuros da história do país, entre os quais o atentado terrorista contra a sede da Amia, o assassinato do procurador do caso e as negociações secretas entre o governo de Cristina Kirchner e o Irã,” VÉJA, 3 de dezembro 2015 (às 21:23 h).
Coutinho also reports that the change in the security and intelligence services may be broader, opening the way to investigations into allegations Argentina secretly supplied Iran with nuclear expertise, as had been reported in the Brazilian weekly magazine VÉJA in March, 2015.
Earlier, in February, Kirchner made light of the the Nisman affair on a state visit to China, in a tweet making fun of Chinese pronunciarion in Spanish . See
“In China, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner makes fun of Chinese accents,” The Trenchant Observer, February 4, 2015.
See also
President-elect Maurício Macrí: Democracy in Latin America gets a boost from Argentina,” The Trenchant Observer, Novewmber 25, 2015.
The Trenchant Observer