Alberto Nisman: Argentine prosecutor drafted warrant for arrest of country's president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Documents were found in the rubbish after his body was discovered last month with a gun shot wound to his head
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Your support makes all the difference.The Argentine prosecutor whose mysterious death has sparked widespread outcry, had drafted a warrant for the arrest of the country’s president that accused her of derailing an investigation over Iranian officials linked to a 1994 bomb attack.
The official leading the investigation into the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman said on Tuesday that in addition to the warrant for the arrest of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, he had prepared a similar document requested the arrest of Héctor Timerman, Argentina’s foreign minister.
The New York Times reported that the 26-page document was found amid the rubbish in Mr Nisman’s apartment in Buenos Aires.
Viviana Fein, the official investigating Mr Nisman’s death, confirmed that Mr Nisman had prepared the draft of the warrant requesting the president’s arrest. There had apparently been some degree of confusion because Ms Fein had initially denied its existence, after the newspaper Clarín published an article on Sunday about the draft.
“The words I should have used are, ‘It’s evident that there was a draft,’ ” Ms Fein said in comments broadcast on Argentine radio.
Ms Fein said the document had been prepared in the summer of 2014, a full six months before Mr Nisman accused the president of covering up the alleged involvement of Iranian officials in the attack on the offices of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, a Jewish community centre, that killed 85 people and left more than 100.
Mr Nisman’s body was found last month in his apartment on the 13th floor of the tower Le Parc, in the Buenos Aires district of Puerto Madero. He had suffered a single gunshot wound to his head and a small pistol was found at his side.
His body was found just hours before he was due to give evidence to politicians over the claims he had levelled as Ms Kirchner, who he said wanted to cement a deal with Iran in order to exchange grain for oil.
Both Ms Kirchner and Mr Timerman have denied the allegations made by Mr Nisman.
It was initially claimed that Mr Nisman had taken his own life. However, Ms Kirchner subsequently said she did not believe he had committed scuide and that he had been killed by ‘rogue security agents’. Her administration said that the country’s security services were riven by a dispute that had resulted in Mr Nisman making his accusations at her.
The Argetine President, who is on a visit to China, issued a stream of updates on Twitter about strengthening ties between Buenos Aires and Beijing but did not comment immediately on the confirmation that Mr Nisman had considered seeking her arrest.
She and the foreign minister have previously pointed to statements by Interpol’s former director that the Argentine government did not lobby it to lift the Iranian arrest warrants, the newspaper said
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