Iran has strongly condemned Argentina’s request to Interpol for the arrest of its Interior Minister, Ahmad Vahidi, over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani denounced the request as “illegal” and based on “lies… by some Argentine judges about Iranian nationals in the AMIA case.”
On April 12, an Argentine court placed blame on Iran for the attack against the Mutual Israelite Association of Argentina (AMIA) Jewish community center and for an earlier bombing against the Israeli embassy, which resulted in 29 fatalities. Argentina’s foreign ministry subsequently announced that Vahidi was part of an Iranian delegation visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and that Interpol had issued a red notice seeking his apprehension at Argentina’s request. However, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported that Vahidi had returned to Iran on Tuesday, where he attended an official ceremony. Additionally, a Sri Lankan foreign ministry official confirmed that Vahidi was not part of the Iranian delegation that arrived in the country on Wednesday.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Kanani asserted that the accusations against Iranian citizens in the AMIA case “lacked any validity” and that Iran supported “the execution of justice” in the matter. He urged Argentine authorities to refrain from making “baseless accusations” and to avoid the influence of “enemies of the bilateral relations between Iran and Argentina.”
