Senior Iranian officials have denied involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, saying the charges levelled against them in Argentina are the result of US and Israeli influence.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister and current adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Argentina’s C5N TV channel that neither he nor his country was responsible for the attack, which killed 85 people.
The bombing of the AMIA centre – the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history – has returned to the spotlight this year, following the unexplained death of a prosecutor who was investigating the attack.
“We believe that this is a baseless accusation, false – a lie,” he said in the late-night broadcast. “We recommend Argentina not fall under the influence of the Zionists.”
Several Iranian officials are on an Interpol wanted list in connection with the bombing of the Amia centre – the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Questioned as to whether he would be willing to testify before an Argentinian judge about the case, Velayati said there was no reason for him to do so and countered by asking whether Argentinian officials would be prepared to face interrogation in Iran for failing to comply with a nuclear cooperation agreement that the two countries signed in the early 1990s.
Velayati and Iranian cleric Moshen Rabbani were accused earlier this year of conspiring with aides to Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to clear Iran of charges in return for trade concessions.
The prosecutor who made those charges, Alberto Nisman, was found dead in his bathroom soon after.
Rabbani told C5N TV – a station considered friendly to the Fernández government – that the allegations were baseless.
“It’s all invented by the press, the intelligence services,” the cleric said and hinted at Israeli involvement in the death.
“The people he worked with knew he wasn’t any use to them any more, that he had to go. I don’t know if it was murder or suicide, but they could have murdered him because it was going to come out that Iran was innocent,” he said.
