A federal judge in Argentina has agreed to transfer the case file of the late AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman to another judge who is presiding over a new investigation into the alleged Argentine government plan to whitewash Iran's role in the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish center, JTA reported on Wednesday.
The body of Nisman, who led the probe of the 1994 bombing which killed 85 people, was discovered in his apartment in January of 2015, with a gunshot wound to the head.
It has been revealed that Nisman had drafted arrest warrants for then President Cristina Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman before he was found dead.
Those warrants charged that Kirchner orchestrated a secret deal to cover up Iranian officials' alleged role in the attack. She denies the allegations.
Judge Daniel Rafecas will send the Nisman information to Judge Claudio Bonadio, who is looking into Timerman, who is Jewish, for his alleged role in the plan, according to JTA.
Bonadio also is investigating Kirchner for an alleged 2015 government securities fraud scheme.
Rafecas, the judge who originally rejected the Nisman accusations, ruled in March that no new evidence has come to light and that the case should remain closed due to the absence of a proven criminal offense. But prosecutor Eduardo Taiano ruled a week ago that the accusations made by Nisman against Argentina's previous government must be reopened in response to a request made by two fathers of AMIA bombing victims, who were accepted as plaintiffs in the case by Bonadio.
Since December, Bonadio has been investigating a lawsuit alleging treason against Fernandez and Timerman who, along with members of Congress, in February 2013 voted for the controversial memorandum of understanding with Iran that initiated the joint investigation of the AMIA attack.
A court subsequently struck down the deal with Iran and Fernandez's successor, Mauricio Macri, indicated he would not appeal that decision.
Nisman had been scheduled to appear in Congress the day after his still-unresolved death to present his allegations about the secret deal to cover up Iranian officials’ alleged role in the AMIA bombing, which killed 85 and injured 300. His findings could help the Bonadio investigation.
More than 18 months after Nisman’s death, authorities have yet to determine whether he took his own life or was killed by someone else.
Argentina last month asked Singapore and Malaysia to extradite former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, whom it accuses of involvement in the 1994 bombing, as he visited the two Southeast Asian countries.
Argentine investigators accuse Velayati and four other Iranian former officials, including former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, of orchestrating the July 18, 1994 car bombing.
The Iranians allegedly ordered Iran's Lebanese proxy Hezbollah to carry out the bombing, the deadliest terror attack in the South American country's history.
Iran denies involvement and has repeatedly rejected Argentine demands for the accused to testify.