By Charles Newbery
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
The prosecutor who last week accused President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of trying to hide Iran’s alleged role in a deadly bombing of a Jewish center was found dead, authorities said Monday.
The body of Alberto Nisman was found late Sunday in a pool of blood in the bathroom of his apartment with a .22 caliber handgun “together with a bullet casing,” the Security Ministry said in a statement.
On his desk, documents were found that Nisman was due to present Monday before a special hearing of Congress about the alleged cover-up, Clarin reported.
The meeting was called after Nisman filed a 300-page complaint last week that accused Fernandez de Kirchner, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other officials and supporters of being involved in a plot to erase Iran’s alleged role in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aries. The attack killed 85 people and injured more than 300, the deadliest in Argentina.
The report suggests that the cover-up plan was launched in 2011 in an attempt to rebuild commercial ties with Iran so that Argentina could start buying much-needed oil and natural gas supplies from the Republic in exchange for beef and grains.
“In the next few days we will know the cause of death,” Viviana Fein, a prosecutor and one of the first to arrive on the scene, was reported as saying in the Argentine media. “We found a gun.”
The government lashed out at Nisman for the accusations in his report, with Timerman calling them “absurd” and full of lies, adding that the prosecutor should focus on finding the culprits and not investigating the president.
Nisman had 10 police officers as bodyguards, the Security Ministry said.
The officers said that the prosecutor went home Friday, was at home all day Saturday and that the request to look for him came Sunday.
After failing to locate him by telephone, officers called his mother who found the front door looked with the key on the inside, the ministry said.
A locksmith was called to open the door and Nisman’s mother entered the apartment with one of the officers, where they found his body on the bathroom floor blocking entry.
Nisman had two guns registered in his name, but it remains uncertain if they were found in the apartment, Clarin reported.
As investigators probe Nisman’s death, Miguel De Campos, the judge assigned to the case of his death said the first indications are of a “suspected suicide,” Clarin newspaper reported.
Cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich, who also criticized Nisman for the investigation, said Monday that De Campo “has the full support of the security forces to ensure an explanation of this painful act.”
