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Nisman: 5 years of questions, CNN program in Spanish 0:15
(CNN) - Everyone agrees: the mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman has all the turns of a thriller. But what does that mean exactly?
Several people have been involved in the history of the prosecutor's death, which was initially declared a suicide, but later judges in two instances declared the death a murder.
Nisman, the special prosecutor investigating a deadly 1994 terrorist attack in Argentina, alleged that the country's then president, the then Foreign Minister and other political leaders covered up Iran’s involvement in the attack. The government told Iran that it would move back in exchange for a favorable trade agreement, Nisman said.
- Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was killed by the complaint against former president Fernández de Kirchner, says Federal Chamber
The prosecutor presented his report, but one day before his testimony on the accusations scheduled to be presented to Congress, he was found dead by a gunshot wound to the head.
There were initial reports of suicide, but many had their doubts. Indeed, suspicions seemed to be confirmed when no gunpowder residue was found in Nisman's hands, which would have been expected if it had been fired.
Since then, several strange things have happened in Argentina, all apparently related to Nisman's death. Five years later, the case continues to be investigated without solving the mystery of his death.
Here is a look at the people, events and places that are part of a network that continues without grouping:
Mutual Association Israelita Argentina, or AMIA
The Mutual Association Israelita Argentina, or AMIA, was the target of a terrorist attack on July 18, 1994, which killed 85 people and wounded hundreds in Buenos Aires. The attack on the center of the Jewish community is the worst terrorist attack in the history of Argentina.
A suicide bomber drove a vehicle loaded with explosives to the building.
Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America.
Alberto Nisman
A minute of silence in the proteas one month of the anniversary of the murder of Alberto Nisman in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on February 18, 2015. (Credit: MarioTama / Getty Images)
It was the prosecutor who accused Argentina's then president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (now vice president of the country) and other senior leaders of covering up Iran's alleged role in the bombing of the Jewish center. Nisman was found dead after presenting a report with his accusations in court, and a day earlier he was scheduled to testify on his accusations before Congress.
His death remains a mystery. A gun and a shell next to it made it look like suicide, and an initial test found no gunpowder residue on his hands.
Almost immediately, suspicions arose that Nisman's death was related to his accusations against the president, Foreign Minister Hector Timmerman, and other personalities of the political elite. Fernández de Kirchner called it suicide, but then quickly changed his tone.
The Argentine government has denied having a role in the prosecutor's death.
Nisman was appointed special prosecutor in the AMIA bombing in 2004 by then President Nestor Kirchner, Fernández's late husband.
Iranian Suspects
Even before Nisman became the principal investigator, previous Argentine prosecutors suspected Iran’s involvement in the terrorist attack. In 2004, Argentina issued arrest warrants against 12 Iranians and requested that Interpol issue red notices for these suspects. But reports of misconduct by Argentine investigators resulted in the case of falling apart.
Nisman was appointed after this disaster to solve it.
Nisman's own investigation also pointed to Iran, and in 2007, Argentina issued new arrest warrants and returned to Interpol. This time six red circulars were issued.
Iranian suspects are Ali Fallahijan, Mohsen Rabbani, Ahmad Reza Asghari, Ahmad Vahidi and Mohsen Rezai and the Lebanese citizen Imad Fayez Moughnieh. The most prominent of these suspects is Vahidi, who for a time was Iran's defense minister.
Argentina also requested red circulars for three other people: the former president of Iran, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and Hadi Soleimanpour, Iran's former ambassador to Buenos Aires. Interpol did not issue a red alert for them.
None of the Iranian suspects are in custody and Iran has not made them available to Argentine prosecutors.
According to justice, the intellectual authors of that attack were senior officials of the Iranian State, something they always denied from Tehran.
Argentina-Iran joint commission
In 2013, the Argentine Congress approved the creation of a joint commission to investigate the 1994 attack with the AMIA. The "truth commission" of five members would include international jurists to analyze the judicial documents of Argentina and Iran.
Argentine lawmakers deliberated for more than 14 hours before approving the measure by a vote of 131-113. Later, Nisman would call this agreement the public face of the alleged cover-up.
The Fernández government announced the agreement as a way for prosecutors to finally interrogate Iranian suspects.
But there was a lot of opposition, even from Jewish groups. They worried that the verdict of the commission was not binding and they distrusted Iran.
In May 2014, the justice declared the agreement of understanding unconstitutional and ordered that the treaty not enter into force.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Cristina Kirchner presents her book (Photo Telam)
Fernández was elected president of Argentina in 2007. She succeeded her husband, Néstor Kirchner, who was president between 2003 and 2007 and died in 2010.
Fernández was re-elected in December 2011 for a new four-year term.
As president, Fernández de Kirchner has often been combative, accusing opponents of undermining their ability to govern.
When Nisman was found dead, she made a statement calling her suicide, followed by a second statement saying she didn't believe he committed suicide.
In 2015, the opponent Mauricio Macri won the presidency and four years later, Fernández returned to the Government, this time as vice president of Alberto Fernández.
In March 2018, a judge ordered an oral trial for the president for the alleged cover-up in the case of the AMIA attack.
Hector Timerman
Héctor Timerman was the Argentine Foreign Minister of the Fernández government, and was one of those accused of conspiring to cover up Iran's participation in the bombing of the Jewish center.
After Nisman's death, Timerman told CNN that the accusations of cover-up were unfounded and said Fernandez's government has done more than any previous administration to get to the bottom of the bombing.
"I am Jewish," he said. "And to think that a person of my religion, the Jewish religion, can reach an agreement not to process the death of 85 people, most of them Jewish in Argentina ... I have to tell you that it is not easy to live with him."
The then foreign minister said he never asked for the removal of the red circulars to the Iranian suspects.
His reputation was affected when he signed the agreement with the Iranians to investigate the joint attack, a measure criticized by the Argentine Jewish community.
At that time, he said: “I negotiated this memo with whom I had to do it, not with whom I wanted. At each step, I took into account that we Argentines learned with great pain that we have to seek justice and not condemnation, to seek the truth and not revenge. ”
Timerman died on December 30, 2018, due to cancer at age 65.
Diego Lagomarsino
Diego Lagomarsino was Nisman's assistant. He is also the only person charged in connection with the prosecutor's death, illegally accused of allowing Nisman to borrow a gun.
The technology expert broke the silence at a press conference, saying that he did not commit any crime and that he let Nisman lend him the weapon at the insistence of the prosecutor.
Nisman feared for his safety after he presented his report in court and did not trust his own security guards, Lagomarsino said.
According to Lagomarsino, Nisman was so afraid that he did not go out to buy his own groceries and feared for his daughters.
Nisman told Lagomarsino not to worry, he was not going to use the weapon. But when Lagomarsino sent a text message later to verify Nisman, the prosecutor never responded.
Justice is still investigating whether Nisman's links with intelligence included Lagomarsino and why the computer technician would have erased two WhatsApp messages he had sent to Nisman on Saturday, January 17, according to the latest telephone expertise. The content of those messages could never be recovered.
Five years after Nisman's death, Lagomarsino awaits the start of the trial against him and said in an interview with TN of Argentina that he hopes to be acquitted. He said he is the victim of investigations and accusations in this investigation. Lagomarsino said that on December 30 he asked to go to trial, according to TN.
Viviana Fein
Viviana Fein speaks to the press in Buenos Aires on January 22, 2015 when she was a prosecutor in the Nisman case. (Credit: JUAN VARGAS / AFP via Getty Images)
Viviana Fein was the federal prosecutor who leads the investigation into Nisman's death.
It was not unusual for her, or the people she interviewed, to be filled with television cameras outside her office.
Fein's approach to research has been careful and transparent. Provides occasional statements with updates on who has spoken and what tests are conducted on the evidence.
However, he made mistakes that have damaged his credibility in the eyes of some. When Clarín newspaper reported that Nisman had drafted an affidavit of arrest warrant for Fernández, Timerman and others, Fein was quoted as saying that it was not true. The government also denied it.
The next day, Fein said his comments were misunderstood. She confirmed that Nisman had contemplated seeking the arrests of the president and others. Preliminary documents were found in the trash can in Nisman's department, he said.
Fein was in charge of the position until December 2015.
Julian Ercolini
After Fein, the investigation was carried out by Judge Julián Ercolini and prosecutor Eduardo Taiano, because after a year of investigations it was decided that the case be investigated by federal justice.
In 2017, Ercolini said that Nisman had not committed suicide, but was killed.
"The death of prosecutor Nisman was not due to suicide" and "would have been caused by third parties and in a malicious way," Ercolini wrote in a 656-page ruling.
According to the count of the facts that the judge does, Nisman was killed with the weapon of Diego Lagormarsino, who was the last person to be in the prosecutor's department. "Lagomarsino one more link in the complex chain of people who in one way or another led Nisman's fate to the known end."
Lagomarsino, who admitted to lending the gun to the prosecutor, has denied having participated in the homicide.
Secretariat of Intelligence, or former SIDE
The Secretariat of Intelligence, or SI, is the national intelligence service of the country. Locally, it is also known as ex-SIDE, in reference to the previous name of the agency, the Secretary of State Intelligence (SIDE).
Following Nisman's death, the government suggested that dishonest intelligence agents feed Nisman with false information about a cover-up and then killed him after filing the charges in court.
"They used it while he was alive, and then they needed him dead," the president said in a statement days after Nisman's body was found.
Fernández then sent a bill to Congress that would abolish the SI and replace it with a new agency, which will be called the Federal Intelligence Agency.
Horacio Antonio 'Jaime' Stiuso
Horacio Antonio Stiuso is his full name, but he is known by his nickname, "Jaime." It is one of the key witnesses of the case.
When Fernandez de Kirchner referred to a dishonest intelligence officer who gave false information to Nisman, she is talking about Stiuso.
Stiuso joined the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) in 1972. In 1992 he was appointed as director of Counterintelligence, in 1994 he began investigating the AMIA attack and directed the SI until Fernández fired him in 2014. The former spy chief allegedly retaliated by cheating Nisman to accuse the government of a criminal cover-up. , say Fernández and his supporters.
Fernandez moved to free Stiuso from his obligation to keep secrets, so he can testify.
According to the file, in 2016, Jaime Stiuso declared to justice that he believes that Nisman was murdered by a "group linked to the Kirchner government" that sought to "simulate suicide." He provided no evidence or witnesses. The cause was in the hands of the federal jurisdiction, where the theory of homicide is sustained. Kirchnerism denies Stiuso's accusation and has argued publicly on the hypothesis of a possibly induced suicide. They claim that Kirchnerism was the main politically and judicially injured by the death of a prosecutor.
Damian Pachter
Reporter Damian Pachter poses for a photograph in the streets of Tel Aviv on February 3, 2015. Pachter was the first to report the news of Nisman's death and left Argentina on January 25, 2015. (Credit: GIL COHEN MAGEN / AFP via Getty Images)
Damian Pachter was a journalist for the English Buenos Aires Herald.
A citizen with dual citizenship of Argentina and Israel, gave him the news of the death of Nisman, informing him through Twitter.
After the scoop, Pachter got off the radar, and some said he fled Argentina for fear of his safety.
In a strange response, the Argentine government published a copy of Pachter's travel records, saying they showed that he simply went to Uruguay and had bought a return ticket.
But Pachter did not return. He announced on Twitter a few days later that he was in Israel, in exile.
This note was published in 2015, and was updated in January 2020.
Alberto Nisman