Rogue agents killed Argentine prosecutor, secret service says
Latest update : 2015-01-23
Argentina's government says rogue agents from the intelligence services may have been behind the suspicious death of a state prosecutor who accused the government of taking part in a cover-up related to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre. The government says Nisman’s allegations and his death were linked to a power struggle within Argentina’s intelligence agency and agents who had recently been fired. It says they deliberately misled Nisman and may have had a hand in writing parts of his 350-page complaint.
“When he was alive they needed him to present the charges against the president. Then, undoubtedly, it was useful to have him dead,” the president’s chief of staff, Anibal Fernandez, said Friday.
Alberto Nisman was found dead in his apartment late on Sunday, a gunshot wound to his head and a 22 caliber pistol by his side along with a single shell casing. He had been scheduled to appear before Congress on Monday to answer questions about his allegations that President Cristina Kirchner conspired to derail his investigation of the attack by taking part in a cover-up shielding Iranian officals suspected of planning the attack.
The head of Argentine intelligence was replaced in December, resulting in the firing of agents who had been helping with Nisman’s investigation. Nisman had accused agents from another faction within the state intelligence apparatus of being part of Fernandez’s alleged plot to clear the Iranian suspects.
One of those fired in the December shakeup was Antonio Stiusso, a senior spy who had helped Nisman with the probe.
The government says Stiusso falsely told Nisman that two men implicated in the case against the president were state intelligence agents. Wire tapped phone conversations of the two were key to Nisman’s accusation that the government was trying to whitewash the 1994 car bombing.
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http://www.france24.com/en/20150123-rogue-agents-killed-argentine-prosecutor-intelligence-service/
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