The Minister of Justice, Martín Soria, this Friday held Hezbollah of Lebanon responsible for the attack on the Israeli embassy in 1992 and criticized the Court for the lack of progress in the case investigating that attack.
"We all know it, the responsibility of Hezbollah and
the lack of cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran
to find the culprits are two facts that deserve the greatest repudiation from our country," said the Minister of Justice, speaking to speak at the event for the 31st anniversary of that terrorist attack that left 29 dead.
However, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, in an official statement, said that "responsibility for the deadly attack
rests with the government of the ayatollahs in Iran
and its terrorist metastases." "Iran continues to be a terrorist state that finances and directs attacks terrorists around the world," Cohen said.
In December 1999, the Court - which is dealing with the case because it involves a foreign embassy - ruled that the attack "was organized and carried out by the terrorist group called Islamic Jihad, the armed wing of Hezbollah."
In his speech, Soria said that "it is necessary that each and every one of us who have this responsibility
make our best efforts for this cause."
"Unfortunately we continue to feel that in some powers this is not the case,"
Soria added, referring to the Court.
"The Torah orders 'justice, you will pursue justice', that search for justice present in any moral, religious or legal order, must be our own guide, our own light that allows us to go through the darkness that impunity always generates," Soria said. .
The Minister of Justice added that "we must start from the necessary basis, which is the responsibility of the Argentine national State: responsible for not having been able to prevent this attack, responsible for not having investigated correctly, and responsible for not having tried and punished the culprits."
The Government promotes in the OAS that the Argentine state is guilty for not investigating the attack against the AMIA and now Soria has taken that line.
"It is this responsibility that allowed our peoples to become victims of a new attack, this time against the AMIA headquarters, just two years after this criminal attack against the Israeli Embassy in Argentina," added Soria.
In addition, the act was attended by the chief of staff Agustín Rossi; the Minister of Education, Jaime Perzcyc;
and that of Labor, Kelly Olmos.
From the opposition were the Minister of Government of the City, Jorge Macri;
the Secretary of International Relations of the City, Fernando Straface; the radical leaders Facundo Manes and Carolina Losada; and the former senator of Pro, Federico Pinedo, among others.
For his part, the Israeli ambassador to Argentina, Eyal Sela, said that "there is no reason that can justify an attack against civilians.
The attack always was and will be a crime no matter what its goal or reason,' this phrase is a literal translation of a speech delivered in 1989 at the UN by David Ben Rafael, an Israeli diplomat who was assassinated on this corner 31 years ago' '.
''31 years ago a Ford F100 passed where you are standing, taking the lives of innocent people with it.
An act is terrorist when harm to civilians and the common population becomes the goal,'' recalled the Israeli ambassador.
Sela assured that as a representative of the State of Israel, he cannot "overemphasize the importance of keeping national and international channels open to
prevent, identify and condemn countries that support and finance terrorist groups such as Hezbollah
."
Finally, the Israeli ambassador concluded: ''31 years have passed.
I cannot even think or imagine how difficult these days, months, years and decades of absence and silence are for those close to those who were murdered here.
The survivors lost a part of their lives in the rubble of what was this embassy''.
The investigation corresponded to the Supreme Court of Justice, which attributed the fact to the terrorist group Hezbollah.
Since 2015, an Interpol red circular has been in force for the international capture of the Lebanese citizen Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman.
Suleiman, considered by the highest court as an operational agent of the organization and a member of the Islamic Jihad, is believed to have entered the country in early 1992 with the explosive material that was used in the attack.
In addition, there is an arrest warrant for Samuel Salman El Reda, of Lebanese origin and 57 years old, accused of having links with the terrorist faction and commercial activities in the "Triple Border" area, between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.
So far, the legal case has not convicted or arrested.
"We cannot accept as a society that the attacks against the Israeli Embassy and the AMIA
continue to go unpunished
, that we continue to demand that those responsible serve sentences for the crimes against humanity they committed," AMIA president Amos Linetzky remarked in a statement. release.
Before Soria, one of the survivors of the attack, Alberto Kupersmid, had offered a speech, exclaiming: "We know that Iran is behind Hezbollah. and without memory it is a country without a future”.
