Argentinian prosecutor found dead after accusing president of cover-up


The Argentinian federal prosecutor who last week accused President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of working with Iran to cover up who was responsible for the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires was found dead in his home Sunday.
Alberto Nisman presented a 300-page document to court on Wednesday. He said the report showed that aides of Kirchner worked with officials in Iran to withdraw Interpol arrest warrants for suspects in the 1994 suicide attack, which killed 85 people, The Guardian reports. The retracted warrants would allow Argentina to start swapping grain for oil from Iran. He had been scheduled to testify before lawmakers on Monday.
The information was gleaned from phone wiretaps, and the judge said Nisman's evidence was "flawed." Nisman said he stood by his report and was afraid the government would retaliate against him; a member of the opposition party PRO told the media that Nisman had received death threats. He was discovered in his locked apartment with a .22 caliber handgun and shell casing next to his body, and an investigating prosecutor said the preliminary autopsy found "no intervention" of others in his death.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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