Argentina to Release Documents About 1992 Israel Embassy Bombing

Netanyahu blamed embassy bombing and subsequent bombing of Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires on Iran during recent speech to Congress.

JTA

Apr. 9, 2015

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Jewish men looking on as rescuers sift through the rubble at the site of a car-bombing at the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on July 18, 1994.Credit: Bloomberg

JTA

Apr. 9, 2015

The Argentinian government has agreed to declassify all intelligence documents about the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people and wounded hundreds, the state's Official Gazette announced on Thursday.

The move comes in response to a request by the National Supreme Court of Justice on Wednesday in a document signed by all four justices.

The High Court is in charge of the investigation because the attack occurred on a diplomatic mission. An ongoing Supreme Court investigation has found that the attack was perpetrated by Hezbollah.

Interest in the investigation has picked up since last month when Argentina’s President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner rebuked Israel for not working to bring the perpetrators of the 1992 bombing of its embassy in Buenos Aires to justice. Israel responded that it is Argentina’s responsibility to bring the bombers to justice.

In 1999, the court ordered the arrest of top Hezbollah operations office Imad Mughniyah, who was assassinated in 2008, in connection with the embassy attack.

Another 85 people were killed in an attack on the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenow Aires in 1994.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned the two bombings during his address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress last month, when he said that Iran “blew up the Jewish community center and the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.”