The former president of Argentina will stand trial for obstruction of justice in
the investigation of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed
85 people and left hundreds wounded.
Judge Ariel Lijo on Friday ruled
that Carlos Menem, who was president of the South American country between 1989
and 1999, along with several other former officials, will be tried for allegedly
protecting accomplices of Hezbollah and its backer Iran, who are believed to
have been behind the attack.
According to state prosecution, the former
president conspired with former state intelligence head Hugo Anzorreguy, former
police chief Jorge Palacios, and others, to hide the involvement
Syrian-Argentine businessman Alberto Kanoore Edul in the attack.
To date
nobody has been convicted of the 1994 bombing, although Argentina has issued
arrest warrants for several Iranians including Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi and
former prime minister Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The 1994 bombing of the
AMIA building came two years after a similar attack on the Israeli embassy in
Buenos Aires that killed 29 people and wounded 242.
The Israeli embassy
marked the 20th anniversary of the event earlier this month in several
ceremonies. “Perhaps the failure to find those who planned the attack on the
embassy is what led to the second attack on the AMIA building,” Lea Kovensky,
who was wounded at the embassy, told The Jerusalem Post earlier this month.