Over three decades after deadly attacks in Buenos Aires targeted Israel’s embassy and a Jewish center, an Argentine court placed the blame Thursday on Iran and declared it a “terrorist state,” according to local media.
The ruling, said Iran had ordered the attack in 1992 on Israel’s embassy and the 1994 attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish center.
Relatives of victims of a bomb attack at the Jewish community center of the Mutual Israelite Association of Argentina (AMIA) that killed 85 people and injured 300, hold photos during its 28th anniversary, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on July 18, 2022
The court also implicated the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite terror movement Hezbollah and called the attack against the AMIA, the deadliest in Argentina’s history, 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 left 29 dead. Two years later, a truck loaded with explosives drove into the AMIA Jewish center and detonated, leaving 85 dead and 300 injured.
The 1994 assault has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected Hezbollah carried it out at Iran’s request.
Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, with some 300,000 members.
The judges ruled Thursday that the AMIA attack was a crime against humanity, and blame then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Bahramaie Rafsanjani as well as other Iranian officials and Hezbollah members.
