MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Nisman did not commit suicide, Nisman was murdered” concludes independent forensic report

Judge Arroyo Salgado said the experts had concluded that Nisman's body was moved, which contradicts the version of events presented by prosecutor Fein

The ex-wife of late special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found fatally shot in his Buenos Aires apartment on Jan. 18, hours before he was supposed to brief Argentina's Congress about his accusations against President Cristina Fernandez, said Thursday that an independent forensic report shows that he was murdered.

 “Alberto Nisman did not commit suicide. Alberto Nisman was murdered,” Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado said in presenting the report at a press conference, adding that the forensic team also ruled out the possibility of an accident.

Arroyo Salgado, who is representing the couple's two daughters and her mother in law in the investigation, also said no alcohol was found in his blood and there was no sign of cadaveric spasm, also known as “death grip,” a possible indicator of suicide.

Instead, Nisman died in agony and that is not compatible with cadaveric spasm, she was quoted as saying in Argentine media.

Reading the conclusions of a nearly 100-page report produced by forensics experts hired by the family, she said: “We can only conclude that Nisman was the victim of a homicide, beyond a doubt.”

She said the experts had concluded that Nisman's body was moved, which contradicts the version of events presented by the prosecutor leading the official inquiry, Vivian Fein.

”Unfortunately, the (official) autopsy drifted into partial, hasty and incorrect conclusions,“ said Arroyo Salgado, insisting the family's own probe had sought the ”objective, scientifically verifiable truth.“

Nisman, whose death remains under investigation as ”suspicious,“ brought charges against Fernandez of trying to conceal Iranian involvement in a 1994 attack on a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires that left 85 people dead.

Nisman's accusation against Fernandez cited the Memorandum of Understanding her administration signed with Iran in 2013 to facilitate the AMIA investigation as the principal instrument of the purported cover-up.

The late prosecutor said that intercepts of telephone calls among some of the prospective defendants, though not Fernandez or Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, showed the outlines of a plan for Argentina to get Interpol to rescind the red notices the international police agency had issued for the arrest of Iranians accused in the AMIA bombing.

But Argentine Judge Daniel Rafecas late last month dismissed the charges, saying the evidence does not provide even minimal support for the accusations against Fernandez, Timerman and six other people.

Many in the Argentine Jewish community believe the AMIA bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by Tehran's Hezbollah allies. Much of the evidence collected since the 20 years of the bombing seems to strongly suggest the lead.

However both the Iranian government and the Lebanese militia group deny any involvement and the accusation relies heavily on information provided by the CIA and Israel's Mossad spy agency.

Prosecutors have yet to secure a single conviction in the case.

In September 2004, 22 people accused in the bombing were acquitted after a process plagued with delays, irregularities and tales of witnesses' being paid for their testimony.

On Wednesday prosecutors to re-launched Nisman's case against Cristina Fernández by appealing a Judge Rafecas decision to dismiss it.

”A criminal allegation of such unusual gravity and institutional impact as the one presented by Mr. Nisman demands every possible effort be made to reach the real truth of what happened,” said lead prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita, who took over the file after Nisman's death.

The president has suggested the prosecutor was manipulated by disgruntled former intelligence agents who killed him to smear her.