Former Argentine president on trial for bombing cover-up

[Judi Lynn]

Former Argentine president on trial for bombing cover-up
Aug 6, 12:06 AM EDT
By DEBORA REY
Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- On the home page of Argentina's largest Jewish community center is a counter that keeps track of the "days of impunity" since a bomb ripped through the organization's central building, causing it to collapse and leaving 85 dead amid the rubble.

On Thursday, 7,689 days since the 1994 attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, former President Carlos Menem, a former top judge and several others will go on trial for allegedly derailing the investigation.

Prosecutors have accused Iranian officials of being behind the bombing. But no one has been convicted in this South American country's worst terrorist attack, which many Argentines believe has come to symbolize an inept and corrupt justice system that operates at the whims of politicians and can be bought off.

"After 21 years of no justice, deception and defrauding the families (of victims), we hope that the truth will emerge about everyone who plotted to cover up and derail the investigation," said Olga Degtiar, whose son was killed in the blast.


More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_ARGENTINA_JEWISH_CENTER_BOMBING_TRIAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-08-06-00-00-45

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141168374

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George H W Bush and Carlos Menem[/center]

[Judi Lynn]

1. Argentine Ex-President Carlos Menem Faces Trial

Argentine Ex-President Carlos Menem Faces Trial

Former leader and 12 others charged with conspiring to suppress probe into Syrian link to 1994 Jewish center bombing

By Taos Turner
Aug. 5, 2015 4:19 p.m. ET

BUENOS AIRES—Twenty-one years after a suicide bomber killed 85 people at a Jewish center here, a dozen Argentine officials, including a former president, go on trial Thursday on charges that they conspired to derail the investigation into the attack.

Carlos Menem, Argentina’s president from 1989 to 1999, his one-time intelligence chief and a former federal judge are among 13 defendants accused of obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence and other charges.

Before he died in January under questionable circumstances after investigating the bombing for 17 years, prosecutor Alberto Nisman concluded Iran was behind the attack, in which a bomb packed into a van destroyed the six-story Argentine Israelite Mutual Association on July 18, 1994 in the capital’s Jewish quarter.

But the prosecution on Thursday is setting out to prove that the defendants engaged in a vast conspiracy to prevent investigators from advancing on another line of inquiry: that there may have been a Syrian connection to the bombing.

More:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/argentine-ex-president-carlos-menem-faces-trial-1438805940