BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- A criminal case against Argentine President Cristina Fernandez dissolved Monday when a federal prosecutor dropped accusations that she and her foreign minister conspired to shield Iranians suspected of planning the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center.
The prosecutor, Javier de Luca, said in a court document that there was no crime on which to base an investigation. The case had been brought by another prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, who died of a gunshot wound in his head hours before he was to present his findings before Congress.
Nisman, who had conducted a lengthy inquiry into the bombing, which killed 85 people, charged that Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah carried it out and that Iranian officials planned and financed it.
In a criminal complaint, Nisman said that an agreement between Argentina and Iran to expedite the investigation into the bombing was actually the veneer for a secret deal in which Argentina, under the orders of Fernandez, promised to absolve former Iranian officials accused of masterminding the attack. In exchange, Nisman wrote, Iran would send oil to Argentina to ease its energy deficit.
The bombing case remains unresolved.
The case against Fernandez had already been thrown out by judges in two courts, but the second dismissal -- a split decision -- was appealed to a higher court.
De Luca, however, told the higher-court judges in a 27-page document that he would not pursue the investigation because there was no evidence. "In our legal system we don't have the power to investigate people's conduct for no reason," he wrote. "Rather only their criminal conduct."
"In this case, even if one goes over all of its hypotheses again and again," he added, "one cannot find any crime to look into."
The three judges of the higher court are likely to accept de Luca's decision to drop the case. They would reject it only if its arguments were unfounded, said Martin Boehmer, a law professor at the University of Buenos Aires.
A Section on 04/21/2015