MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina's AMIA 1994 terrorist attack trial will be held next 6 August

“We have great expectations in the trial,” Rodrigo Borda, who represents Memoria Activa, which represents relatives of the July 1994 attack victims

Argentina's Memoria Activa, one of the most active groups that gather together relatives of the victims of the 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, celebrated the decision to hold a trial (6 August) for the cover-up of the bombing this year, which was announced on Friday after weeks of heated controversy between the Executive, the Supreme Court and the tribunal in charge of judging the case.

 “We have great expectations in the trial,” Rodrigo Borda, who represents Memoria Activa, said in conversation with a radio station. The group took the case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and in 2005 former president Nestor Kirchner acknowledged the Argentine state had been responsible for not preventing the attack and for not investigating it.

In March, Memoria Activa met with Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti to request him to unlock the trial, which will sit former president Carlos Menem and former judge Juan José Galeano, among others in the dock.

Carlos Telleldín, accused of selling the van used to blast the Jewish community centre located on Pasteur street on July 18, 1994, said that he doubted that the trial would lead to only limited concrete results. Telleldín did say that he felt that former judge Galeano, in charge of the investigation during the 1990s, would be convicted.

Telleldín also added that he blamed the family of former president Menem of covering up Syria’s involvement in the bombing.

The first stage of the trial is expected to cover the transfer of intelligence funds to Telleldín so that he would bear false witness and the second will look into the various maneuvers used to whitewash the alleged Syrian responsibility, Borda said.

The bomb blast at the AMIA Jewish Center killed 85 people and injured hundreds in 1994, and remains unsolved. The death last January of special prosecutor Alberto Nisman added even more mystery to the whole issue since he was investigating another alleged cover-up, this time by the current government of President Cristina Fernandez and several of her top officers.

In this case Nisman claimed that Cristina Fernandez was involved in an operation to cover up the alleged involvement of Iran in the AMIA attack. In effect Nisman had identified several Iranian top officials as responsible for master-minding the attack, which was implemented by Hezbollah.