Argentine Prosecutors Call for Arrest of Rafsanjani for '94 Hezbollah Bombing

Argentine prosecutors asked a federal judge on Wednesday to order the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center by Hezbollah that killed 85 people and injured more than 200. The decision to attack "was undertaken in 1993 by the highest authorities of the then-government of Iran,'' prosecutor Alberto Nisman said. He and fellow prosecutor Marcelo Martinez Burgos said they suspected Hezbollah undertook activities only "under orders directly emanating from the regime in Tehran.''

Prosecutors urged the judge to seek international and national arrest orders for Rafsanjani, who was Iran's president between 1989 and 1997. They also asked the judge to detain several other former Iranian officials, including a former intelligence chief, Ali Fallahijan, and former FM Ali Ar Velayati. Nisman also called for the arrest of two former commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, two former Iranian diplomats and a former Hezbollah security chief for external affairs.

The attack on the seven-story Jewish center, a symbol of Argentina's more than 200,000-strong Jewish population, was the second of two attacks targeting Jews in Argentina during the 1990s. A March 1992 blast destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people in a case that has also been blamed on Hezbollah.