“Illegal”: Iran Dismisses Argentina’s Request to Detain Minister Regarding Bombing Incident in 1994

Tehran: Iran denounced as “illegal” on Wednesday Argentina’s request that Iran’s interior minister be detained by Interpol in connection with a 1994 explosion that claimed 85 lives at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Nasser Kanani, the spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry, “strongly condemned the repetition of illegal requests based on lies… by some Argentine judges about Iranian nationals in the AMIA case,” the ministry said on its website.

Iran was held accountable by an Argentinean court on April 12 for the 1994 assault on the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and the bombing of the Israeli embassy two years before that claimed 29 lives.

The Iranian minister, Ahmad Vahidi, was traveling with a team from Tehran to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, according to the Argentine foreign ministry on Tuesday. At Argentina’s request, Interpol has issued a red notice demanding his arrest.

The two nations have also been urged by Argentina to detain Vahidi, the statement said.

However, Vahidi was back in Iran on Tuesday, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA, and he was present for a ceremony to induct a province governor.

According to an AFP source, Vahidi was not included in the Iranian group that arrived in Sri Lanka on Wednesday. The official was from the country’s foreign ministry.

The spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry said, “The accusations made in the AMIA case against Iranian citizens lacked any validity.”

Tehran “supports the execution of justice and the prosecution of those who, by destroying documents, caused serious deviations in the course of the AMIA case and escaped punishment for this incident,” he said.

Kanani also urged the Argentine government to refrain from “making baseless accusations against the citizens of other countries and not to be influenced by the enemies of the bilateral relations between Iran and Argentina”.