Argentina court holds ‘Terrorist State’ Iran responsible for 1990s attacks

• An Argentine court has declared Iran a “terrorist state” after deadly attacks on Israel’s embassy and Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
• The court also implicated the Iran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah and labeled the 1994 attack as a “crime against humanity.”
• Former Argentine president Carlos Menem, who was president at the time of both attacks, was acquitted.

An Argentine court placed the blame Thursday on Iran and declared it a “terrorist state,” according to local media, over three decades after deadly attacks in Buenos Aires targeted Israel’s embassy and a Jewish center.

Press reports cited the ruling, stating that Iran had ordered the attack on Israel’s embassy in 1992 and the attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish center in 1994. The court also implicated the Iran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah and labeled the attack against the AMIA — the deadliest in Argentina’s history — as a “crime against humanity,” according to court documents cited by media reports.

“Hezbollah carried out an operation that responded to a political, ideological and revolutionary design under the mandate of a government, of a State,” Carlos Mahiques, one of the three judges who issued the decision, told Radio Con Vos, referencing Iran.

In 1992, a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy resulted in 29 deaths. Two years later, a truck loaded with explosives drove into the AMIA Jewish center and detonated, resulting in 85 deaths and 300 injuries. Argentina and Israel have long suspected that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group carried out the 1994 assault at Iran’s request, although it has never been claimed or solved.

Prosecutors charged top Iranian officials with ordering the attack. Tehran has denied any involvement. Argentina, with some 300,000 members, has the largest Jewish community in Latin America. It is also home to immigrant communities from the Middle East, particularly from Syria and Lebanon.

The judges ruled Thursday that the AMIA attack was a crime against humanity and placed blame on then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Bahrami Rafsanjani, as well as other Iranian officials and Hezbollah members.

Jorge Knoblovits, the president of the Delegation of Israelite Associations of Argentina (DAIA), welcomed the decision.

He told Radio Mitre the ruling “is very important because it enables the victims to go to the International Criminal Court.”

Former Argentine president Carlos Menem, who died in 2021 and was the president at the time of both attacks, stood trial for covering up the AMIA bombing but was ultimately acquitted. Authorities sentenced his former intelligence chief, Hugo Anzorreguy, to four-and-a-half years in jail for his role in obstructing the probe.

Some dozen defendants, including the former judge who led the investigation into the attack, Juan Jose Galeano, faced a slew of corruption and obstruction of justice charges in the case.

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