Argentina’s High Court ruled has found Iran guilty of orchestrating the bombings of Israel’s embassy and a Jewish center in the early nineties.
On March 17, 1992, a Ford F-100 pickup truck loaded with between 600 and 800 pounds of explosives drove into the front entrance of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. The blast destroyed the embassy and caused significant damage to a nearby Catholic church and a school. Over 200 people were injured, and 29 were killed in the suicide bombing.
Two years late on the morning of July 18, a van loaded with explosives detonated outside the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building, a Jewish community center located in the heart of Buenos Aires. The bombing caused the building to collapse, killing 85 people and injuring over 300 others.
Allegations of cover-ups and corruption have marred both investigations. Initial AMIA investigations pointed to local Hezbollah connections with Iranian officials similar to the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing. However, the judicial process has been fraught with difficulties, including the mysterious death of a key prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, in 2015, who claimed to have evidence of a cover-up by high-level Argentine officials.
The High Court’s ruling on Thursday, cited by The Associated Press, deems Iran a “terrorist state” responsible for both bombings and implicates Lebanese proxy Hezbollah in the AMIA attack.
