Argentina on Sunday condemned the appointment of Ahmad Vahidi as interim commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, highlighting that the navy chief has been accused by native courts of involvement within the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish group centre in Buenos Aires.
Vahidi has been accused by Argentina’s Judiciary of being one of many masterminds behind the lethal terrorist assault, which left 85 individuals useless and greater than 300 injured.
The Iranian official allegedly participated in a 1993 assembly the place the choice was made to hold out the bombing.
In an announcement posted on social media on Sunday, President Javier Milei’s workplace criticised each Vahidi’s appointment and Iran’s current assaults on Israel.
“The Workplace of the President condemns the vile assault perpetrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran towards the State of Israel, by means of the large launch of missiles and drones focusing on the civilian inhabitants,” the assertion learn.
Argentina additionally mentioned it “repudiates the current appointment of Ahmad Vahidi – one of many principal suspects within the AMIA bombing, which claimed the lives of 85 individuals – as Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
Vahidi was appointed provisionally following the reported killing of his predecessor, Esmail Ghaani, in an Israeli airstrike as a part of an ongoing marketing campaign focusing on Iran’s navy infrastructure.
The assertion alleged that Vahidi is a navy determine “linked to terrorist operations,” who has been the topic of “a global arrest warrant and a crimson discover from Interpol” since 2007 in reference to the AMIA assault.
In keeping with the late prosecutor prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who led the AMIA investigation earlier than his loss of life in 2015, Vahidi chaired the Iranian management group that evaluated and accredited the proposal to hold out an assault on Argentine soil in 1994.
Latest Israeli airstrikes have reportedly killed a number of high-ranking Iranian navy officers, together with Ghaani and Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of the Normal Workers.
The marketing campaign additionally destroyed missile depots, launchers and command centres, in what Israeli officers described as a preventive operation to cease Iran from buying nuclear weapons. Tehran has denied the allegations.
The sudden escalation has raised fears of a wider regional battle. Iran has launched a number of waves of missiles in retaliation, with the Revolutionary Guards warning of “efficient, focused and extra devastating operations” to return.
In its assertion, Milei’s workplace described Vahidi’s appointment as “an unacceptable provocation” by Iran in the direction of Argentina and in the direction of all free nations that “defend life and condemn terrorism.”
It famous that AMIA prosecutors have not too long ago renewed calls to permit trial in absentia, arguing that worldwide impunity should not be allowed to dam justice.
The reminiscence of the 85 individuals who misplaced their lives within the AMIA assault “calls for that these accountable be dropped at justice, with out privileges or worldwide safety,” the assertion learn.
Final yr, a court docket in Argentina positioned blame on Iran for the 1994 AMIA bombing and for a 1992 assault on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 individuals.
The 1994 assault has by no means been claimed or solved, however Argentina and Israel have lengthy suspected that the Iran-backed group Hezbollah carried it out at Tehran’s request.
Prosecutors have charged senior Iranian officers with ordering the assault, although Tehran denies any involvement. No-one has been arrested, and the case stays unsolved.
The court docket additionally implicated Hezbollah and categorized the AMIA bombing as a “crime towards humanity”, inserting it past the statute of limitations regardless of the passage of time and lack of judicial progress.
Milei, who has expressed a deep private curiosity in Judaism and studied Jewish scripture, is certainly one of Israel’s staunchest defenders. Since taking workplace in December 2023, he has reoriented Argentina’s overseas coverage. He describes Israel and america as his “pillars.”
Argentina is dwelling to the biggest Jewish group in Latin America, with some 300,000 members. It additionally hosts giant immigrant communities from the Center East, significantly from Syria and Lebanon.
– TIMES/PERFIL/NA
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