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LIMA, Peru/SAO PAOLO, Brazil: The attendance of an Iranian vp on the inaugural ceremony of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has spurred outrage among the many Latin American Jewish neighborhood.
Mohsen Rezaee, vp for financial affairs, represented Iran at Ortega’s inauguration on Monday.
The Sandinista chief, who has dominated the Central American nation since 2007, was sworn in for his fourth consecutive mandate.
Rezaee, who led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for 16 years, is a part of a bunch of Iranian officers who allegedly masterminded the 1994 bombing of the constructing of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Affiliation, recognized by the Spanish acronym AMIA.
The detonation of a truck loaded with explosives killed 85 individuals and left greater than 200 injured on the Jewish heart in Buenos Aires, a metropolis with an estimated inhabitants of 200,000 Jews, the most important such neighborhood in Latin America.
An extended inquiry carried out by Argentinian authorities with the assistance of Israeli and US intelligence resulted in Choose Rodolfo Canicoba Corral’s 2006 arrest order towards former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani and different senior officers, together with Rezaee.
A member of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was additionally a part of Canicoba’s arrest warrant. Since 2007, the group behind the bombing has been on the Interpol wished checklist.
The assault on AMIA was the second terrorist bombing of Jewish targets in Argentina. Two years earlier, in 1992, an explosion on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 individuals.
The fees towards Rezaee had been additional strengthened by his personal son Ahmad, who left Iran for the US in 1998 and advised American authorities that the assault was deliberate by Tehran and that Hezbollah was concerned.
After a brief interval within the US, he returned to Iran and retracted his earlier claims. He was discovered lifeless in a Dubai resort in 2011.
Rezaee rejected the Argentinian costs as “a sheer lie” in an interview to the Los Angeles Occasions in 2009. He mentioned he had been touring internationally and had by no means had any downside.
Certainly, his go to to Nicaragua has not led to his detention. He not solely attended the inauguration, but in addition had a gathering with Ortega, his spouse and Vice President Rosario Murillo on Thursday, Sandinista newspaper E19 reported.
Fernando Lottenberg, the Group of the American States’ commissioner to observe and fight antisemitism, issued a proper repudiation of Rezaee’s journey to Nicaragua, emphasizing that he “is below the Interpol purple alert and Nicaragua, as a member of such an establishment, should perform the detention order.”
Lottenberg, previously head of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, advised Arab Information that he and different members of the Latin American Jewish neighborhood are nervous concerning the obvious closeness of Iran and among the area’s nations.
“The Iranians have a long-lasting relationship with Venezuela. Evidently this course of is reaching different international locations,” he mentioned.
“Rezaee attended Ortega’s inaugural ceremony and likewise took photos with the Cuban chief Miguel Diaz-Canel.”
The Jewish neighborhood is “nervous about such relations established by nations in our area with an antisemitic and dictatorial regime,” Lottenberg mentioned.
He added that whereas Nicaragua introduced in November 2021 its intention to go away the OAS, the nation nonetheless has to satisfy its obligations with the group for 2 years. “It’s not an automated course of,” he defined.
AMIA launched an announcement on Tuesday reaffirming its demand for “rigorous monitoring of the Iranian defendants after they go away their nation, in order that they can not transfer freely via nations that shield them.”
The assertion added: “Virtually 28 years after the assault on its headquarters, AMIA reiterates its unwavering dedication to the seek for justice and to the demand that these answerable for the crime towards humanity carried out be tried with the constitutional ensures established by the regulation of our nation.”
AMIA mentioned Argentina’s Ambassador to Nicaragua Daniel Capitanich attended the ceremony and “didn’t go away the premises nor alerted the authorities on such a critical state of affairs.”
Over the previous few days, opposition members of Congress in Argentina have condemned President Alberto Fernandez’s administration for sending Capitanich to the inauguration.
The Argentinian Chancellery mentioned Capitanich didn’t know that Rezaee could be current. Later, Argentina’s Overseas Ministry launched an announcement protesting Rezaee’s presence.
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