File : The AMIA bombing occurred on 18 July 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and targeted the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, a Jewish Community Centre. Executed as a suicidal attack, a bomb-laden van was driven into the AMIA building and subsequently detonated, killing 85 people and injuring over 300.
President Javier Milei’s government calls for Interpol to assist in the arrest of Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, in connection with the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in 1994.
Argentina’s government has asked Interpol to arrest Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi over the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Once, Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and left 300 injured, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi
Vahidi is part of an Iranian delegation currently visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and Interpol has issued a red alert seeking his arrest at the request of Argentina, the portfolio headed by Diana Mondino said in a statement.
Argentina has also asked those two governments to arrest Vahidi, it added. Interpol’s Central Bureau in Lyon has issued a Red Notice for his arrest, Noticias Argentinas reported on Tuesday night.
In parallel, Interpol’s Buenos Aires bureau communicated with the its counterpart in Islamabad to request it proceed with an arrest with a view to extradition to Argentina.
While this is not the first time an arrest has been requested from Interpol in connection with the AMIA case, it is the first time it has occurred during President Javier Milei’s government.
Vahidi is accused by the justice system of being one of the masterminds of the terrorist bombing. He allegedly participated in a meeting in 1993 in the Iranian city of Mahshad, where the decision was taken to carry out the attack in Buenos Aires.
Recent developments
On April 12 a court in Argentina placed blame on Iran for the 1994 attack against the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires and for a bombing two years earlier against the Israeli Embassy, which killed 29 people.
The 1994 assault has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected the Iran-backed group Hezbollah carried it out at Iran’s request.
Prosecutors have charged top Iranian officials with ordering the attack, though Tehran has denied any involvement. No-one has been arrested in the case, which remains unsolved.
The court also implicated Hezbollah and called the attack against the AMIA community centre – the deadliest in Argentina’s history – a “crime against humanity,” placing them beyond the statute of limitations despite the passage of time and the lack of judicial results.
Tuesday’s statement from the Foreign Ministry said: “Argentina seeks the international arrest of those responsible for the AMIA attack of 1994, which killed 85 people, and who remain in their positions with total impunity.”
“One of them is Ahmad Vahidi, sought by Argentine justice as one of those responsible for the attack against AMIA,” said the statement, which was co-signed by the Security Ministry.
Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, with some 300,000 members. It is also home to immigrant communities from the Middle East – from Syria and Lebanon in particular.
Former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), who died in 2021 and was the president at the time of both attacks, was tried for covering up the AMIA bombing, but ultimately acquitted.
His former intelligence chief Hugo Anzorreguy was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail for his role in obstructing the probe.
Anzorreguy was among some dozen defendants who faced a slew of corruption and obstruction of justice charges in the case, including the former judge who led the investigation into the attack, Juan José Galeano, who in 2019 was jailed for six years for concealment and violation of evidence.
Buenos Aires Times
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