Ex-Argentine President’s Trial Begins for Bombing Cover-Up
teleSUR | August 6, 2015
Victims of the 1994 bombing hope the trial will bring truth and justice, after 21 years of no one being held accountable for the crime.
The trial begins Thursday of former Argentine President Carlos Menem and 12 other state officials for alleged cover-up and involvement in a 1994 attack on a Jewish community center that left 85 people dead.
On July 18, 1994 a bomb ripped through the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires, the largest Jewish cultural center in the country.
Despite the gravity of the bombing that shook the nation, and the resulting deaths, the investigation was continuously hindered and no one was ever convicted of the crime.
Menem and the 12 other officials – who include two former prosecutors, a former top intelligence official, former police officers, a Jewish community leader and a mechanic who owned the truck carrying the explosives – are now facing trial for allegedly derailing the investigation.
If convicted, the sentences will range between three and 15 years.
“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.
The trial is expected to last for months, while prosecutors will try to prove why the former president and the other officials may have wanted to bury the investigation.
The case exploded back into the centre of Argentine political life earlier this year when the prosecutor investigating the case was killed just hours before he was due to present a report to Congress where he was set to accuse the Argentine government of being involved in a cover up.
However the accusations were later definitively thrown out by a high level court and the government has said the allegations are politically motivated.
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