Despite the fact that the government of Alberto Fernández has condemned in recent days “the affront to Argentine justice”, which meant the presence of the high-ranking Iranian official Mohsen Rezai at the inauguration of Daniel Ortega on January 10, and some of his officials have justified that his ambassador in Managua, Mateo Daniel Capitanich, did not know that he would be at the event, the news that he was invited was public three days before .
Vice President Rosario Murillo confirmed on January 7 the presence of “brother” Rezai and his delegation, who would be arriving “in the next few days to accompany this moment,” according to the public transcript of speech of the regime’s spokeswoman, in which she also announced the visit of the delegations from China, Cuba and Venezuela. Ambassador Capitanich has indicated that he was not aware of Murillo’s speech in an email, responding to a query from CONFIDENTIAL.
This Wednesday, January 19, within the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), Argentina ratified through its representative the declaration of rejection of Rezai’s presence, in the midst of the scandal that arose after his participation in the event.
Part of their statements can be read on that country’s Twitter account at the OAS, while they describe as reckless the statements of the Nicaraguan ambassador to the regional body, Arturo McFields, whom they urge for the Central American country to comply with the red notice of Interpol in the case of the Iranian.
and again condemns Mohsen Rezai’s visit to Managua, for constituting an affront to Argentine justice and to the victims of the brutal attack that occurred on July 18, 1994 in the city of Buenos Aires.
— Argentina in the OAS (@ARGenOEA) January 20, 2022
According to the Argentine justice system, the current vice president of economic affairs in Iran is accused of participating in the planning of an attack in 1994 on the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA), in which 84 people died.
The decision has been rejected by the relatives of the victims of the car bomb explosion in 1994, whose lawyer Tomás Farini filed a criminal complaint together with the opposition deputy Waldo Wolff, to which they will incorporate Murillo’s speech, as confirmed by the jurist after knowing the revelation.
Wolff harshly questioned the Argentine executive saying on his Twitter account that they are lying and that there is manifest complicity.
The world knows that the government lies. It broke a historical tradition of claiming for AMIA cause that all administrations supported.
Obvious complicity.Argentine ambassador accompanied Ortega, despite the fact that Murillo advanced the Iranian visit https://t.co/T3WlG9ldMO
— WW (@WolffWaldo) January 20, 2022
On January 13, when the scandal was growing in Buenos Aires, sources from the Argentine newspaper The nation, confirmed that the Administration of Alberto Fernández was supporting Ambassador Mateo Daniel Capitanich, who had given the explanations of the case.
Even the presidential spokeswoman, Gabriela Cerruti, assured that medium that “it was difficult to foresee that this situation was going to happen. The ambassador did not know that he was there, he did not know the face of this person, he was not in the same room, he did not know that he had been invited and he found out the next day, through the publication of some newspapers.”
“All this that they have said in the OAS is an act of hypocrisy, because they knew that the Iranian was perfectly going to be in Nicaragua. We are going to put it in the complaint,” announced Farini, who, in an interview a few days ago, had considered that the attitude of Argentina, which spoke a day later about the case, was an attempt “to save the papers” given the magnitude of the the news.
Javier Porta, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, said that his country’s position is in the two statements of conviction. “Furthermore, it is not the power of Argentina to make Interpol alerts work. Our obligation is to keep them current. Then the Judiciary has to act,” he said through a WhatsApp message.
Ambassador says he did not hear about Murillo’s speech
For his part, Ambassador Capitanich responded to a query from CONFIDENCIAL, denying that he had heard Murillo’s speech in which Rezai’s visit was reported.
“Regarding the alleged monologue of Vice President Murillo that you mention, I did not hear it nor did I receive any comments about it. The Embassy only deals with official information and I reiterate that the Embassy never received a list of guests that would allow us to know in advance the presence of Mr. Rezai’s event”, assured the Argentine ambassador.
Likewise, the diplomat assured that he did not know Rezai’s face, “and he was not in the same room or sector as me and a group of ambassadors.” “I did not know that I had been invited and I found out the next day, through the publication of some newspapers,” he reiterated.
The journalist Daniel Santoro, editor of Clarín and author of the book “Nisman must die”, related to the death in strange circumstances of the prosecutor in charge of the AMIA case, explained in an interview with CONFIDENTIAL that since 1983 the Argentine governments had made the defense of human rights the axis of their policy, which was broken by the Fernández Administration.
“It is a really worrying issue, which (this Administration) has broken with a tradition that had begun in 1983. Argentina, after having had this symbolic figure of 30,000 disappeared —what does it matter if they are more or less, the gravity of the tragedy of the dictatorship is enormous! — placed human rights in a universal category —above the country’s right to non-interference in its internal affairs and other arguments used by the dictatorship,” he said. Santoro in the interview published in the Esta Noche program.
Prosecutor Nisman was found dead in his apartment in 2015, one day before an appointment in Congress where he would denounce a memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Iran and the Argentine executive chaired by Cristina Fernández Kirchner—current vice president—, which was denounced because opened the door to enduring impunity in the case.
Rezai’s participation in the acts of Ortega’s inauguration was one of the topics of the meeting on January 19 between the foreign ministers of Argentina and the United States. At the meeting, the South American country showed its concern through its Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero.
