Argentina slams Iranian VP travel despite part in AMIA bombing

Why has Iran's Vice President been allowed to travel despite an Interpol red notice against him for his part in the AMIA bombing?

 Secretary of the Expediency Council arbitration body and Iran's upcoming presidential election candidate Mohsen Rezai attends a news conference at the Iranian Mehr news agency office in Tehran, May 24, 2009. (photo credit: REUTERS/MORTEZA NIKOUBAZL)
Secretary of the Expediency Council arbitration body and Iran's upcoming presidential election candidate Mohsen Rezai attends a news conference at the Iranian Mehr news agency office in Tehran, May 24, 2009.
(photo credit: REUTERS/MORTEZA NIKOUBAZL)

Iran’s vice president has been able to travel the world despite an Interpol notice against him for his part in the AMIA bombing in 1994, to Argentina’s dismay.

Iranian Vice President of Economic Affairs Mohsen Rezai, former commander-in-chief of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been on the Interpol wanted list since 2007 for allegations of aggravated murder and damages in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires.

Eighty-five people were killed and 151 seriously injured, still the biggest single deadly attack against Jews since the Holocaust.

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry released a statement expressing its strongest condemnation of Rezai’s visit to Nicaragua for the inauguration this week of its president, Daniel Ortega.

“Argentina expresses, as it has also done last August before the appointment of Rezai as vice president... that his presence in Managua constitutes an affront to Argentine justice and to the victims of the brutal terrorist attack against the AMIA,” the statement reads. “The Argentine Government demands once again that the Government of Iran cooperate fully with the Argentine Judiciary, allowing the people who have been accused of participating in the attack against the AMIA to be tried by the competent courts.”

RESCUE WORKERS search for survivors and victims in the rubble left after a powerful car bomb destroyed the Buenos Aires headquarters of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), in this July 18, 1994 photo (credit: REUTERS)
RESCUE WORKERS search for survivors and victims in the rubble left after a powerful car bomb destroyed the Buenos Aires headquarters of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), in this July 18, 1994 photo (credit: REUTERS)

Israeli Foreign Ministry Deputy Head of the Division for Strategic Affairs Tammy Rahamimoff-Honig tweeted the statement from Argentina, saying that it is an “important condemnation,” and that it is “outrageous” that Rezai “travels the globe with impunity.”

Iran’s current interior minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, has also been flagged by Interpol in connection with the AMIA bombing. He was head of the Quds Force, a subsidiary of the IRGC, when the bombing took place. He was blacklisted by the US in 2010.