Arrest Warrant For Argentine President Found at Home of Dead Prosecutor
A draft of a warrant ordering the arrest of Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and foreign minister Héctor Timerman was found at the apartment of Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor who was shot to death in his home last month. Nisman was set to testify the next day in front of the country's congress that de Kirchner had conspired with Iran to cover up the cause of a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people in Buenos Aires.
The existence of the warrant—which was discovered in a trash can—was revealed today by the lead investigator looking into the mysterious and suspicious death of Nisman, who had spent the past 10 years investigating the terrorist attack at a Jewish community center. In the weeks before his death, Nisman claimed that he had evidence proving that de Kirchner negotiated with the Iranian government to obscure their role in the bombing in exchange for access the country's oil.
But one day before he was set to present the details of his allegations to Argentina's congress, Nisman was found dead in his apartment with a bullet wound to his head. Originally, the government claimed that he had committed suicide, but a few days later de Kirchner backed off that statement, eventually opening a formal inquiry into the prosecutor's death.
Given that Nisman had made it known that he thought de Kirchner personally negotiated with Iran to cover up the cause of the deadliest terror attack in the country's history, there are several individuals and governments who would have had obvious motives to see Nisman dead—and, in fact, the government's initial explanation that Nisman died of a suicide was met with immediate skepticism in Argentina.
Now, after the revelation that Nisman had written up a document for the arrest of Argentina's president, the brunt of the public's suspicion will weigh even heavier on the country's government. Still, it's not clear who carried out—or might have ordered—Nisman's death; the Argentine government is merely in a group of potential suspects along with the Iranian government, Hamas (who also had a hand in the 1994 attack) and any number of individual actors.
Plus, as MSNBC's Chris Hayes points out, perhaps someone wants to make the Argentine government look like the guilty party:
someone's trying to frame the President? Maybe?
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 3, 2015
[image via AP]