On Tuesday, April 23, the Argentine government asked Pakistan and Sri Lanka to arrest Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, wanted for the attack against the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), in Buenos Aires in 1994, and who is currently touring these two countries.
“Argentina calls for the international arrest of those responsible for the 1994 AMIA bombing, which killed 85 people, and who continue in their positions of power with impunity,” wrote the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release. “One of them is Ahmad Vahidi, claimed by the Argentine justice system to be one of those responsible for the attack against AMIA. This individual is currently Minister of Interior of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is part of a government delegation visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka these days,” the text continues.
“Argentina has requested his arrest from the governments of Pakistan and Sri Lanka in accordance with the mechanisms provided by Interpol,” it adds.
Iran has denied any involvement
General Vahidi has been interior minister since 2021, having previously served as defense minister. At the time of the Buenos Aires attack, he headed the Al-Quds Force, the unit responsible for covert operations within the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Iranian regime.
The AMIA attack on July 18, 1994, was attributed by the Argentine courts and by Israel to the Iranian regime and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. Iran has denied any involvement and has always refused to allow the eight former officials indicted by the Argentine courts, including General Vahidi and former President Ali Rafsanjani, to be questioned.
Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, with some 300,000 members. Before AMIA, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires had been the target in 1992 of an attack which left 29 dead and more than 200 injured, also attributed to Iran by the Argentine courts, and which remains also unpunished.
In 2013, then-Argentine President Cristina Kirchner signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran to create a “truth commission” to investigate the attack and allow Argentine prosecutors to visit abroad to question the accused. This agreement was ratified by the Argentine Congress, but never by the Iranian Parliament. He was lambasted by leaders of the Jewish community in Argentina, who accused Ms. Kirchner of covering up the perpetrators of the attack. A judicial investigation opened on this subject in 2015, however, ended with a dismissal of the case in 2021.
