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2 Interpol's decision time on
'Iranian' bombing By Kaveh L
Afrasiabi
the bombing, which it condemned
the very next day, Argentina should be barred from
seeking the red notices.
Prosecutor Nisman in his report to Interpol's
consultation meeting, organized by its secretary
general, dated January 22, 2007, stated that
Argentina wanted to issue arrest warrants in order
to hear preliminary statements from the
individuals named - in other words, to fish for
evidence. It is surely wholly
disproportionate to issue
international warrants to apprehend and detain
Iranian nationals in foreign jurisdictions when
what is sought is the return of the individuals
concerned to a state with which they have no
connection (Argentina) for the purpose of
questioning.
The Argentine judiciary put on trial 22
Argentine nationals (including 15 members of the
police and security apparatus) in connection with
the bombing, and all were found not guilty on
February 27, 2000. Galeano later filed charges
against 22 Argentines in connection with the
bombing and their trial before the Federal Oral
Court concluded in September 2004 with acquittals
of all defendants. Despite over 90 weeks of
hearings, no evidence was ever produced
implicating Iran in general or Iranian nationals
in the attack. The Argentine High Court
subsequently admonished the prosecutors for their
"irregular" investigations and mishandling of the
case, and Galeano was removed and subsequently
dismissed from office for irregularities in this
trial.
Iran's ambassador to Argentina at the time of
the bombing, Hadi Soleymanpour, was detained in
2003 in London pursuant to a request by Argentina.
After lengthy and thorough examination of
documents presented by the Argentine judicial
system, British authorities found the accusation,
as well as all submitted documents, to be null and
void, and they therefore ordered his release. Yet,
despite the British court's finding of the absence
of any apparent case against Soleymanpour, the
Argentine prosecutors kept up with their warrant
against him.
Argentina's case built up
by Iranian 'dissidents' What is most
troubling about Argentina's case against Iran is
that almost all of it is built around statements
and evidence offered by Iranian dissident groups,
which have a vested interest in implicating Iran
in the atrocity.
A case in point:
initially, Iranian dissident groups alleged that
the bombing was carried out by four Iranians,
three of whom were alleged to have been in
Argentina. Despite the absence of evidence to
substantiate these allegations, in August 1994
Galeano issued arrest warrants against them, Yet,
in 2003, Galeano withdrew the warrants against
those three as he was forced to accept on the
basis of enquiries that not one of them was even
in Argentina at the time of the explosion. Indeed
one of them had left Argentina in 1988 and had not
returned since.
Despite the clear
non-involvement of these three Iranians, it took
nine years for an Argentine judge to revoke the
warrants against them. It took another three years
for another judge to revoke the warrant against
the fourth.
Yet in August 2003, without
offering any further evidence, Galeano issued
warrants against another eight Iranian diplomats
(including Soleymanpour). After Galeano's removal,
his replacement, Rodolfo Corral, persisted with
his requests to Interpol for red notices against
the accused Iranians. Again, he did not provide
any new evidence against them.
Perhaps the
biggest flaw of the Argentine case against the
government of Iran is that it relies heavily on
the statements and evidence presented by the
Iraq-based opposition group known as
Mujahideen-e-Khalq, presently courted by the US
military. Some of its leaders are, incidentally,
on the most-wanted list of Interpol in connection
with their complicity in Saddam Hussein's
atrocities against Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites
immediately after the 1991 Gulf war.
Against this background, it is up to
Interpol's 186-member general assembly to prove
that it is immune from political pressures from
without, otherwise its international prestige and
legitimacy will seriously suffer.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the
author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and
co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear
Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.
He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential
latent", Harvard International Review, and is
author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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