A group of private investigators and a material witness have told the Argentine Supreme Court they suspect that no car bombs were used either in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy or in the 1994 bombing the Jewish community’s headquarters here.
According to the investigators, the bombs used in both terror attacks had been placed inside the buildings or inside large cast-iron containers used to remove construction debris.
They said that both the Israeli Embassy and the Argentine Mutual Aid Association, or AMIA, building were being removed at the time of the attacks and that there were large containers for hauling away rubble parked at the entrances of both building when the bombs were detonated.
The March 17, 1992, bombing of the Israeli Embassy here killed 29 people and left more than 100 injured. The July 18, 1994, attack on the AMIA building left 87 dead and at least 300 wounded.
Two weeks ago, the Argentine Surpreme Court – which has jurisdication over the investigation into the embassy blast – announced that “unless the parties involved or the attorney general of Argentina come up with new information,” he investigation of the 1992 attack will be closed in March.
Jewish leaders and other observers to the case reacted with skepticism to the testimony of the private investigators.
“This theory is interesting, but the group did not provide any hard evidence to back it up,” a source close to the Argentine judiciary said in an interview.
Luis Dobniewsky, attorney for a group of relatives of victims of the AMIA bombing, said he thinks it “unlikely” that the new testimony “will alter the investigation in any way.”
Ruben Beraja, president of the Argentine Jewish umbrella organization DAIA, said that “this theory should be taken with much caution.”
Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Aviran, striking a somewhat more optimistic note, said he was “hopeful that these investigators are on to something” and that their testimony “can be useful to the Supreme Court.”
In their testimony before the court, Carlos De Napoli, Enrique Carranza and Daniel Jofee said, “Both attacks were similar. Both left craters which are remarkably similar. And in both cases, the buildings crashed down in the same way.”
The three are members of a group that includes private investigators, journalists and relatives of victims of the bombings.
Joffe was present at the time of the AMIA bombing. An electrician, he had just delivered some spools of wire to the building and was leaving when his car malfunctioned.
He was parked a few yards from the building’s main entrance and was trying to repair his car when the bomb went off.
“I was looking straight ahead, to the AMIA entrance,” he told the judges, “and I saw no van, no car bomb.”
De Napoli, Carranza and Joffe are not the first to deny that a car bomb was used in the AMIA attack.
Journalists Joe Goldman and Jorge Lanata came to the same conclusion in their 1994 book “Smoke Screens.”
According to the authors, the car parts found at the site of bombing “were planned to mislead the investigators.”
Meanwhile, in a separate development, the judge in charge of the investigation into the AMIA bombing fired a high-ranking police official in the wake of allegations of misconduct.
Judge Juan Jose Galeano ordered Police Inspector Angel Salguero “to leave the investigation” into the AMIA blast after the local daily newspaper Pagina 12 published evidence linking Salguero to Carlos Alberto Telledin.
Telledin, a second-hand car dealers who allegedly sold the Renault van that investigators believe was used in the attack, is the sole suspect held in connection with the AMIA bombing after a 17-month-long investigation.
According to Pagina 12, Salguero and Telleldin knew each other and had been “in business together” for years. The paper further stated that here is a photograph showing Salguero and Telledin together in a friendly pose.
Prosecutor Eamon Mullen confirmed that Galeano had “cut Inspector Salguero from the investigation,” but he refused to elaborate.
Other legal sources said that Galeano would look into “allegations of involvement in the case by Buenos Aires police personnel.”
State Police Chief Pedro Klodczyk flatly denied that there was “any chance of policemen under my command being involved with terrorists.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
