First modification:
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CourtIDH) began to deal this October 13 with the responsibility of the Argentine State in relation to the attack on the AMIA Jewish mutual society in 1994, and the impunity in which the judicial case finds itself, in a public hearing in Montevideo.
Within the framework of the 153rd Ordinary Period of Sessions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CourtIDH) that takes place this week in Montevideo, Uruguay, the judges address the complaint of the Active Memory Civil Association, made up of relatives of victims, which accuses the State for not having prevented the attack on the Jewish mutual society AMIA and not having investigated it adequately and effectively.
“Frustration is the greatest feeling” in the AMIA case, Adriana Reisfeld, president of Memoria Activa and who lost her sister Noemí due to the attack that left 85 dead and 300 wounded, said in court.
“Great Irregularities”
In the first of the two days of public hearing, Reisfeld assured that “none of the prosecutor’s offices that acted during all these years accompanied the relatives” and said that he hopes that after the process in the Court justice will finally be achieved.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) considered, when passing the case to the Court, that the State “was aware of the existence of a risk situation on sites identified with the Argentine Jewish community” and “did not adopt reasonable measures to avoid” that danger.
Likewise, he argued that “great irregularities” were committed by the state bodies that directed the investigation, which was deliberately diverted for more than eight years. The IACHR also considered that there is “an unreasonable delay” both in the investigation of the attack and the subsequent cover-ups.
Neither arrested nor reasons
The July 18, 1994 bomb attack on the headquarters of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) completely collapsed its eight-story building in the Once neighborhood, traditional to the large Jewish community of Buenos Aires.
The Argentine justice determined that the main suspects in the attack are the Iranian rulers at the time, including former President Ali Rafsanjani. There are no detainees in the case nor have the motives for the attack been clarified yet.
A trial on the attack ended in 2019 with light sentences for judicial officials and the government of former President Carlos Menem (1989-99), found guilty of “covering up” the attack, but without determining the reason for the concealment of evidence or the diversion of the investigations carried out by the concealers.
An advisory body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR investigates cases that it presents to the Inter-American Court when it determines that there were human rights violations not remedied by the States. The rulings of the court, based in San José, Costa Rica, are final and unappealable.
