Argentina accuses Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi of complicity in a 1994 bombing.
Wednesday 24 April at 14:0685 people were killed in the attack on the Jewish AMIA center in Buenos Aires in 1994, and it has never been determined with certainty who the culprits were.
An Argentine court concluded on 14 April that Iran was behind both this attack and an attack on the Israeli embassy in which 29 people were killed two years earlier.
Israel claims that it was the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon that carried out both attacks on orders from Iran, which the Iranian authorities deny.
Asks Pakistan and Sri Lanka for help
Argentina has now issued an international arrest warrant for Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who is visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka this week at the head of an Iranian delegation.
Argentina is asking both countries to arrest him, but it is not known how they react to the request.
– Argentina requests the arrest of those responsible for the AMIA attack in 1994, which killed 85 people, and who are still in their positions and unpunished, says a statement from the Argentine Foreign Ministry.
– One of them, Ahmad Vahidi, is wanted as one of those responsible for the attack against AMIA, it says further.
Background from the Revolutionary Guard
65-year-old Vahidi previously held a high-ranking position in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He also has a past as defense minister in Iran. He took over the post as Minister of the Interior in 2021.
Argentina also demanded Vahidi’s extradition in 2006, along with seven other Iranians, including former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Rafsanjani was president of Iran from 1989 to 1997 and died in 2017.
