MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Macri wants those behind the AMIA attack to be tried in Argentina

The Argentine flag flew at half mast before the Casa Rosada in mourning for those killed in 1994.

Argentine President Mauricio Macri Thursday pledged to continue to seek that the people involved in the 1994 bombing of the Israeli Social Service Associacion (AMIA) “be tried in Argentine territory” to bring impunity to an end, once “the weight of the law has reached those responsible.”

Macri made these statements upon presenting at the Casa Rosada Museum the book “Justicia Perseguirás” (Justice Thou Shalt Seek), a collection of reflections from world leaders about the deadliest terrorist attack in the country, which left 85 people dead.

”We will continue to look for those accused of these acts to be tried in Argentine territory and we will keep the red alerts (from Interpol) on them, and we ask the Islamic Republic of Iran to collaborate in the investigation,“ Macri said.

During the ceremony, the president also wondered ”what happened to [prosecutor] Alberto Nisman,“ who was in charge of the AMIA case unit and was found dead in his apartment in 2015 with a gunshot to his head in what the administration of then President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner tried to portait as a suicide.

As per a decree signed by Macri earlier this week, Thursday the Argentine flag flew at half mast in mourning for those killed in the AMIA attack on July 18, 1994.

At 9:53 am, the exact time of the explosion, hundreds of sirens sounded throughout the city of Buenos Aires, particularly at the site of the AMIA building and at police stations and cars as well as at fire brigade baracks while bells tolled at schools and churches.

At the site on Pasteur street, survivors and relatives of the victims gathered in the now usual yearly ritual to pray.

The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and other organisations held a separate event on Plaza Lavalle just in front of the main federal courthouse to outline the lack of justice in the AMIA bombing case.

Diana Wassner, whose husband Andrés Malamud died in the attack, delivered the closing speech: ”I've been standing in the same place for 25 years, [still] detained on the same page.“

That lack of justice should be less surprising in a country where as rescuers did a humanitarian work in the ruins of the building, all valuable items seeemed to have been vanished under the expansive wave.

Diana Malamud recovered her dead husband's watch, his wedding ring and his wallet, but it only contained six pesos. ”My husband always had a lot of money with him, someone took the money and left only his credit cards and personal papers,“ she said in a newspaper interview. According to survivors, Andrés Malamud, who was the architect in charge of the repair works of the building - had six thousand dollars in his pocket.

In a separate event, AMIA President Ariel Eichbaum stressed that ”we must take dimension of the passage of time and what it means not to have justice.”

Eichbaum has taken part in several tributes abroad this year and spoke before a special session of the United Nations in New York.

In Tel Aviv, Ilan Sztulman, who has just returned from a three-year term as Israel’s ambassador in Buenos Aires, noted approvingly that Argentinian lawmakers are now considering legislation to enable the trial in absentia of suspects in the bombing, in reference to a decision to advance legislation providing for such trials.