The plot thickens: The journalist who first reported on the death of the Argentinian whistle blower has fled to Israel out of fear for his life.
Damian Pachter, the reporter who exposed the death of Alberto Nisman, the Argentinean state prosecutor who was investigating the 1994 terror attack on the Jewish AMIA Center, fled Argentina for fear of his life and landed on Sunday in Israel, where he holds citizenship.
Pachter, a Buenos Aires Herald journalist, left the country after reporting “suspicious surveillance.”
“Now safe in Tel Aviv. Thanks everybody. We’ll talk soon,” he tweeted from Tel Aviv.
“I’m leaving because my life is in danger. My phones are tapped,” Pachter told the website Infobae. “I’m going to come back to this country when my sources tell me the conditions have changed.
“I don’t think that will be during this government,” he added.
Nisman was found dead in his apartment last Sunday, shot hours before he was due to appear in front of a congressional panel on Monday afternoon to explain his accusations against President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. (Photo: wikipedia)
His death was initially declared a suicide by investigators, but these findings sparked a wave of protests. Many demanded that the truth be told about Nisman’s death, as they believed he was murdered because of his investigation.
Argentina suspects that rogue agents from its own intelligence services were behind Nisman’s death. The government claims that Nisman’s allegations and his death were linked to a power struggle at Argentina’s intelligence agency and to agents who had recently been fired, Reuters reports.
Nisman accused the president and foreign minister of burying the Iranian role in the bombing – the worst terror attack in Argentinian history, which claimed the lives of 85 people. Clearing the Iranian suspects would allow Argentina to move on with its plan to exchange Argentinean grains for much-needed Iranian oil.
Iran’s specific motivation for the AMIA bombing, according to Nisman, was to punish Argentina for suspending its nuclear cooperation with Tehran.
Over the years, the case has been noted for incompetence, and there have been accusations of cover-ups. Argentinean courts have accused Iran of sponsoring the 1994 bombing – a charge that Iran denies.