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COMMENT: For more than two decades, we have been cov­er­ing the AMIA bomb­ing in Argenti­na. Alber­to Nisman–an Argen­tine pros­e­cu­tor inves­ti­gat­ing the tan­gle of evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries in the bomb­ing died under strange cir­cum­stances.

Key points of inves­tiga­tive inter­est in the case include evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning in the direc­tion of the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal and drug and weapons deal­er Monz­er Al-Kas­sar and Nazi war crim­i­nals resid­ing in Argenti­na. (The AMIA build­ing had a large archive on Nazi fugi­tives, includ­ing many report­ed to have fled to Argenti­na.)

In addi­tion, Iran­ian offi­cials have been named as sus­pects in the case. (We would note that the issues of pos­si­ble Iran­ian respon­si­bil­i­ty for the crime, the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal and the issue of the Nazi dias­po­ra over­lap, to a con­sid­er­able extent. Monz­er al-Kas­sar used Merex–a firm found­ed by ODESSA king­pin Otto Sko­rzeny and Nazi vet­er­an Ger­hard Mertins–for key weapons deals. Aya­tol­lah Khome­ini’s stay in Paris was financed by Fran­cois Genoud.)

A recent foren­sic exam­i­na­tion of Nis­man­’s death reached a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion from the dubi­ous “sui­cide” ver­dict ini­tial­ly returned by inves­ti­ga­tors: ” . . . . The lat­est foren­sic inves­ti­ga­tion into Mr. Nisman’s death was car­ried out by a team of 28 experts. Over the course of nine months, they recon­struct­ed the scene where his body was found in his bath­room, with a sin­gle gun­shot wound to the head. They con­clud­ed the pros­e­cu­tor was killed by two peo­ple, accord­ing to the senior judi­cial offi­cial, who has seen the report. The foren­sic experts dis­cov­ered sev­er­al injuries on Mr. Nisman’s body — includ­ing a nasal frac­ture, a hematoma in his kid­ney, lesions on his legs and a wound on the palm of his hand — that they say are con­sis­tent with an attack on the pros­e­cu­tor before he was killed. Accord­ing to the offi­cial, inves­ti­ga­tors also said they found ket­a­mine, an anes­thet­ic, in Mr. Nisman’s blood, which they sus­pect was used to sedate the pros­e­cu­tor before he was shot. No gun­pow­der residue was found on his hands, which they said made the sui­cide the­o­ry implau­si­ble. . . .”

The largest trove of Nazi arti­facts ever uncov­ered in Argenti­na was recent­ly dis­cov­ered in the Buenos Aires sub­urb of Béc­car, near where both Josef Men­gele and Adolf Eich­mann lived. Arti­facts in the trove have accom­pa­ny­ing pho­tos of Adolph Hitler with the same or sim­i­lar arti­facts, which is pre­sumed to add to their com­mer­cial val­ue. And the over­all quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty has inves­ti­ga­tors con­vinced that this could have only come from high-rank­ing Nazis, rais­ing ques­tions of who else may have slipped into Argenti­na with­out the world’s knowl­edge: “ . . . . They were put on dis­play at the Del­e­ga­tion of Argen­tine Israeli Asso­ci­a­tions in Buenos Aires on Mon­day. Many Nazi high­er-ups fled to Argenti­na in the wan­ing days of the war, and inves­ti­ga­tors believe that offi­cials close to Adolf Hitler brought the arti­facts with them. Many items were accom­pa­nied by pho­tographs, some with Hitler hold­ing them. . . .”

Nis­man­’s wid­ow is the judge pre­sid­ing over the case: ” . . . . The judge in the case is San­dra Arroyo Sal­ga­do, the wid­ow of pros­e­cu­tor Alber­to Nis­man. Sal­ga­do imposed a gag order on the inves­ti­ga­tion, so no fur­ther details were revealed. . . .”

Sus­pects have been iden­ti­fied in the case: ” . . . . One sus­pect iden­ti­fied by the police is not in Argenti­na. There are Argen­tine and non-Argen­tinean sus­pects being inves­ti­gat­ed, but no fur­ther details have been pro­vid­ed. . . .”

“As Argen­tine Elec­tions Approach, Two Dis­turb­ing Mys­ter­ies Loom” by Daniel Poli­ti; The New York Times; 9/30/2017.

Only a few weeks ago, Argentina’s midterm elec­tion was shap­ing up to be a duel over eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy. But in the final weeks before the vote, two nation­al mys­ter­ies have roiled the race. The left­ist for­mer pres­i­dent, Cristi­na Fer­nán­dez de Kirch­n­er, is run­ning for a sen­ate seat, hop­ing to make a polit­i­cal come­back by accus­ing her cen­ter-right suc­ces­sor of undo­ing many of her pop­ulist poli­cies in order to ben­e­fit the country’s elite. But the nation’s focus has already start­ed to shift, start­ing with an explo­sive new twist in the noto­ri­ous 2015 death of a pros­e­cu­tor, Alber­to Nis­man. Mr. Nisman’s body had been found only hours before he was sched­uled to pro­vide damn­ing tes­ti­mo­ny accus­ing Mrs. Kirch­n­er, then the pres­i­dent, of a cov­er-up . . .

. . . . Now, a team of foren­sic experts has issued a report con­clud­ing that Mr. Nis­man had been mur­dered, accord­ing to local news reports and a senior judi­cial offi­cial famil­iar with the inves­ti­ga­tion. That deter­mi­na­tion, like­ly to be made pub­lic in the com­ing days, con­tra­dicts the find­ings of anoth­er team of experts dur­ing Mrs. Kirchner’s tenure that there was no evi­dence any­one else was involved in Mr. Nisman’s death, mean­ing that hehad prob­a­bly killed him­self.

The saga of the pros­e­cu­tor has long con­sumed Argenti­na, for good rea­son. He had been in charge of inves­ti­gat­ing the still-unsolved 1994 bomb­ing of a Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter in Buenos Aires that killed 85 peo­ple. Before his death, he accused Mrs. Kirch­n­er and mem­bers of her gov­ern­ment of try­ing to shield Iran­ian offi­cials sus­pect­ed of play­ing a role in the attack as part of a deal that would sup­ply Iran­ian oil to Argenti­na. Sup­port­ers of Pres­i­dent Mauri­cio Macri, whose minor­i­ty coali­tion in Con­gress is expect­ed to pick up seats in the elec­tion on Oct. 22, say the lat­est report vali­dates their long­time con­tention that Mr. Nis­man was a vic­tim of foul play.

By con­trast, allies of Mrs. Kirch­n­er, who has denied any wrong­do­ing, char­ac­ter­ized the new foren­sic report as an effort by the cur­rent gov­ern­ment to fur­ther under­mine her image. Mrs. Kirch­n­er faces charges in sev­er­al cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tions. But in the run-up to the elec­tion, Mrs. Kirch­n­er has a mys­tery of her own to point to: The dis­ap­pear­ance of San­ti­a­go Mal­don­a­do, an indige­nous rights activist who, sup­port­ers say, van­ished after bor­der guards took him into cus­tody.

The dis­ap­pear­ance has out­raged many Argen­tines, and Mrs. Kirch­n­er con­tends that the gov­ern­ment is sim­ply putting for­ward the new alle­ga­tions about Mr. Nisman’s death in order to dis­tract atten­tion from the case now unfold­ing on its watch. “This is an immense smoke bomb to hide San­ti­a­go Mal­don­a­do,” Mrs. Kirch­n­er said in a radio inter­view. Mr. Maldonado’s fam­i­ly and human rights groups have called for a protest on Sun­day to mark the two-month anniver­sary of his dis­ap­pear­ance. The lat­est foren­sic inves­ti­ga­tion into Mr. Nisman’s death was car­ried out by a team of 28 experts. Over the course of nine months, they recon­struct­ed the scene where his body was found in his bath­room, with a sin­gle gun­shot wound to the head.

They con­clud­ed the pros­e­cu­tor was killed by two peo­ple, accord­ing to the senior judi­cial offi­cial, who has seen the report. The foren­sic experts dis­cov­ered sev­er­al injuries on Mr. Nisman’s body — includ­ing a nasal frac­ture, a hematoma in his kid­ney, lesions on his legs and a wound on the palm of his hand — that they say are con­sis­tent with an attack on the pros­e­cu­tor before he was killed.

Accord­ing to the offi­cial, inves­ti­ga­tors also said they found ket­a­mine, an anes­thet­ic, in Mr. Nisman’s blood, which they sus­pect was used to sedate the pros­e­cu­tor before he was shot. No gun­pow­der residue was found on his hands, which they said made the sui­cide the­o­ry implau­si­ble. Two teams of foren­sic experts, includ­ing a pres­ti­gious unit that oper­ates under the purview of the Supreme Court, had pre­vi­ous­ly said that there was no evi­dence that any­one else was in Mr. Nisman’s bath­room when he died. Mr. Nisman’s for­mer wife, Fed­er­al Judge San­dra Arroyo Sal­ga­do, has long said that she believes he was mur­dered. Mrs. Kirch­n­er at first sug­gest­ed Mr. Nis­man had com­mit­ted sui­cide, but she lat­er back­tracked, say­ing she was con­vinced he was killed to tar­nish her gov­ern­ment. Julio Raf­fo, an oppo­si­tion law­mak­er who is not allied with Mrs. Kirch­n­er, said in an inter­view that a group of expe­ri­enced for­eign foren­sic experts should be empan­eled to exam­ine all the reports and make a rul­ing that is not polit­i­cal­ly sus­pect. “This is very alarm­ing; every­thing relat­ed to this case is strange,” said Mr. Raf­fo, who has long been con­vinced Mr. Nis­man was mur­dered, and has called on a judge to inves­ti­gate whether pre­vi­ous foren­sic exam­in­ers cov­ered up evi­dence.

Diego Lago­marsi­no, a com­put­er tech­ni­cian who worked with Mr. Nis­man, is so far the only per­son charged in the case, for giv­ing the pros­e­cu­tor the gun with which he was shot. A team of foren­sic experts and lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Mr. Lago­marsi­no have chal­lenged the mur­der the­o­ry, argu­ing that sui­cide remains the most like­ly sce­nario. The pros­e­cu­tor in charge of the case, Eduar­do Taiano, must now review all the evi­dence to decide whether to rec­om­mend label­ing Mr. Nisman’s death a mur­der rather than a “sus­pi­cious death.” The gov­ern­ment is urg­ing cau­tion. “We have to be super pru­dent with this,” the head of the president’s cab­i­net, Mar­cos Peña, told reporters in late Sep­tem­ber. “We have to wait for the courts to rule.”

While allies of Mr. Macri are focus­ing on the lat­est devel­op­ments involv­ing Mr. Nis­man, sup­port­ers of Mrs. Kirch­n­er have turned the appar­ent dis­ap­pear­ance of Mr. Mal­don­a­do, 28, into a ral­ly­ing cry. The case has rever­ber­at­ed across much of the coun­try, reviv­ing mem­o­ries of the mass dis­ap­pear­ances and killings that took place dur­ing the bru­tal 1976–1983 dic­ta­tor­ship. Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple took part in a demon­stra­tion over the dis­ap­pear­ance on Sept. 1, which end­ed in vio­lent clash­es between demon­stra­tors and the police.

Human rights activists have crit­i­cized Mr. Macri’s admin­is­tra­tion for quick­ly com­ing to the defense of the bor­der guards who evict­ed the indige­nous rights pro­test­ers in Patag­o­nia. Mr. Mal­don­a­do had tak­en part in the protest. Gov­ern­ment offi­cials insist that the search for him con­tin­ues. “I just don’t know what to believe any­more,” said Ana Patri­cia Bal­iño, a 38-yearold accoun­tant in Buenos Aires. “Every­one seems to be lying.

Many share her skep­ti­cism. A recent poll by Man­age­ment & Fit, a con­sul­tan­cy, found that three out of every four Argen­tines said they had lit­tle or no con­fi­dence in the country’s judi­cia­ry. Around 40 per­cent of Argen­tines believe that Mr. Mal­don­a­do will nev­er be found, accord­ing to a poll by Gia­cobbe & Aso­ci­a­dos in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. Short­ly after Mr. Nisman’s death, 59 per­cent of Argen­tines said the truth of what hap­pened to him would nev­er be known. “The gen­er­al pub­lic is dis­gust­ed by the way in which politi­cians fight among each oth­er to win points with com­pli­cat­ed cas­es, rather than focus­ing on fig­ur­ing out what hap­pened,” said Jorge Gia­cobbe, a pub­lic opin­ion ana­lyst.

2. “Behind a book­case, a secret pas­sage­way leads to a trove of Nazi arti­facts in Argenti­na” by Max Bear­ak; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 06/20/2017

The inter­na­tion­al police agency Inter­pol dis­cov­ered one of the largest and most dis­turb­ing sets of Nazi arti­facts this month in a north­ern sub­urb of the Argen­tine cap­i­tal, Buenos Aires.

Agents became aware of a col­lec­tor of his­tor­i­cal arti­facts who they say had pro­cured items “under UNESCO’s red alert,” refer­ring to the Unit­ed Nations orga­ni­za­tion tasked with cul­tur­al preser­va­tion. This month, with the pow­er of a judi­cial order, they raid­ed the collector’s house, accord­ing to Clarín, an Argen­tine news­pa­per. Behind a book­case, a secret pas­sage­way led to a room where they found the biggest trove of orig­i­nal World War II-era arti­facts in Argentina’s his­to­ry.

They were put on dis­play at the Del­e­ga­tion of Argen­tine Israeli Asso­ci­a­tions in Buenos Aires on Mon­day. Many Nazi high­er-ups fled to Argenti­na in the wan­ing days of the war, and inves­ti­ga­tors believe that offi­cials close to Adolf Hitler brought the arti­facts with them. Many items were accom­pa­nied by pho­tographs, some with Hitler hold­ing them.

“This is a way to com­mer­cial­ize them, show­ing that they were used by the hor­ror, by the Fuhrer. There are pho­tos of him with the objects,” Argen­tine Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Patri­cia Bull­rich told the Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

…

The trove also includes a bust relief of Hitler, mag­ni­fy­ing glass­es embossed with swastikas (as well as a pho­to of Hitler hold­ing the same or a sim­i­lar instru­ment), a large stat­ue of an eagle above a swasti­ka, sil­ver­ware, binoc­u­lars, a trum­pet and a mas­sive swasti­ka-stud­ded hour­glass.

Mas­ter­minds of the Nazis’ Holo­caust Josef Men­gele and Adolf Eich­mann both fled to Argenti­na as their coun­ter­parts were put on tri­al for war crimes in Ger­many. Both lived in hous­es near Béc­car, the sub­urb where the new trove was found.

The 75 arti­facts found in this pas­sage­way pro­vide more evi­dence of sim­i­lar crimes. Police are now inves­ti­gat­ing how exact­ly the arti­facts made it into Argenti­na, think­ing, per­haps, about which oth­er Nazi lead­ers may have entered the coun­try unbe­known to the world.

3. “Tools used in Nazi med­ical exper­i­ments uncov­ered in Argenti­na” by JTA; Jew­ish Tele­graph­ic Agency; 06/14/2017.

Police in Argenti­na dis­cov­ered orig­i­nal Nazi objects from World War II, includ­ing tools for Nazi med­ical exper­i­ments, at a house in Buenos Aires.

The objects were found Fri­day in a hid­den room of the house in the north­ern part of the city. They are in the cus­tody of the jus­tice who is tasked with inves­ti­gat­ing the find.

“We are too shocked, too touched by the impres­sive find­ing, but also hap­py” to have made this dis­cov­ery, Argen­tine Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Patri­cia Bull­rich said Tues­day in a state­ment accom­pa­ny­ing a video pub­lished on her You Tube chan­nel to show the objects. Bull­rich called it “the biggest seizure of archae­o­log­i­cal objects and Nazi pieces of our his­to­ry.”

The judge in the case is San­dra Arroyo Sal­ga­do, the wid­ow of pros­e­cu­tor Alber­to Nis­man. Sal­ga­do imposed a gag order on the inves­ti­ga­tion, so no fur­ther details were revealed. But Bull­rich said she will ask the judge to have the objects donat­ed to the Holo­caust Muse­um of Buenos Aires.

The Argen­tine Jew­ish polit­i­cal umbrel­la DAIA will hold a cer­e­mo­ny next Mon­day to hon­or the Secu­ri­ty Min­istry and the fed­er­al police divi­sion that under­took the inves­ti­ga­tion. The min­istry also tweet­ed pho­tos from the cache on its offi­cial Twit­ter account, includ­ing pho­tos of the Nazi objects as well as Asian his­tor­i­cal objects.

A través de @PFAOficial incau­ta­mos obje­tos históri­cos de ori­gen asiáti­co y piezas con sim­bología nazi des­ti­nadas al mer­ca­do negro. pic.twitter.com/CO6lyTTFc8— Min­is­te­rio Seguri­dad (@MinSeg) June 9, 2017

“The main hypoth­e­sis is that some­one who was part of the regime entered into Argenti­na because the amount of objects of the same style is dif­fi­cult to find in pri­vate col­lec­tions that can have one or two objects, but not of this amount and of this qual­i­ty,” a police offi­cer who was part of the nine-month inves­ti­ga­tion told Argen­tine tele­vi­sion.

The police offi­cer said that some of the objects “were used by the Nazis to check racial puri­ty.”

Nazi puz­zles for kids also were dis­cov­ered in the cache.

One sus­pect iden­ti­fied by the police is not in Argenti­na. There are Argen­tine and non-Argen­tinean sus­pects being inves­ti­gat­ed, but no fur­ther details have been pro­vid­ed.

In June 2016, a col­lec­tor from Argenti­na paid $680,000 for Nazi under­pants and oth­er mem­o­ra­bil­ia.

Argenti­na was a refuge for Nazis after World War II. Adolf Eich­mann was cap­tured in the north­ern area of Buenos Aires in 1960. Nazi war crim­i­nals Joseph Men­gele and Erich Priebke also chose Argenti­na as a refuge. . . .