Argentina, Soccer Superpower, Asks World Cup Host To Arrest an Alleged Planner of AMIA Bombing

Will Argentina, a soccer superpower, drop out of next month’s World Cup in Qatar? Relations between the two countries took a major turn for the worse today when Buenos Aires called on Doha to arrest an Iranian visitor wanted for alleged complicity in the worst terrorist act perpetrated on the South American country’s soil. The Argentine foreign ministry asked Qatar to arrest the Iranian vice president for economic affairs, Mohsen Rezaei, during his meeting with the emir of Qatar in Doha Tuesday morning. Mr. Rezaei is accused of being involved in the 1994 terrorist attack on Buenos Aires’s Jewish community center, known as AMIA.Doha’s foreign policy is designed to appease all its neighbors. Its relations with Tehran were cited as one reason that the Saudis and its allies pushed Qatar out of the Gulf Cooperation Council in 2014. Qatar is now back in the GCC alliance even as its relations with Iran, with which it shares a gas field, remain tight. Arresting a high-level Tehran official could change all that. On Monday night, a federal judge, Daniel Rafecas, signed a letter addressed to the Argentine foreign ministry reaffirming the arrest warrant against Mr. Rezaei. The warrant was requested by the prosecutor investigating the AMIA case, Sebastian Basso. “It is expressly stated that in the event that the requested person is found and his preventive detention proceeds, this judiciary undertakes to formally request his extradition, offering reciprocity in similar cases,” the letter reads. Mr. Rezaei is accused of attending a 1993 meeting at which the AMIA attack was planned, which would make him as “one of the main characters of the attack that affected Argentina,” according to Mr. Basso’s letter. The Argentinian justice department has charged Mr. Rezaei with double aggravated homicide, and for acting out of racial or religious hatred to the detriment of the AMIA bombing’s 85 victims. He is also charged with crimes involving minor injuries and qualified serious injuries committed out of racial or religious hatred. According to an Argentinian newspaper, Infobae, after Mr. Basso’s letter was sent to the Qatari authorities, Doha informed Argentina’s foreign ministry that it is willing collaborate with the execution of a 2007 Interpol red alert against Mr. Rezaei.The AMIA attack was the worst terrorist attack in Argentinian history, according to the government. On July 18, 1994, a car bomb was exploded at the building of the Argentine Israelite Mutal Association, known as the AMIA, killing some 85 people and injuring 300. More than 25 years later, none of the persons responsible for the attack have been prosecuted. In 2007, the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol, voted unanimously to publish six of nine red notices in connection with the AMIA attack. The notices included Iran’s former intelligence minister, Ali Fallahijan, the chief architect of Iran’s Latin American network, Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian diplomat, Ahmad Reza Asghari, and the Revolutionary Guards commander, Mohsen Rezaei, among others. For 16 years, Mr. Rezaei served as commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is on the American state department’s list of terrorist organization. The 1994 AMIA attack occurred during his time as IRGC chief, as did a deadly car bombing at Buenos Aires’s Israeli embassy two years earlier. Mr. Rezaei was a presidential candidate in the 2005, 2009, 2013, and June 2021 elections. In August 2021, Mr. Rezaei was appointed vice minister of economic affairs. Since then, he has visited several countries, including during the inauguration of Nicaragua’s president, Daniel Ortega, in January. As of yet, his Interpol arrest warrant has not been executed by any of these countries. Argentina could change that by threatening to withdraw from the November World Cup, the hosting of which Qatar considers to be a crown jewel of its national achievements.

Argentina, Soccer Superpower, Asks World Cup Host To Arrest an Alleged Planner of AMIA Bombing

Argentina, Soccer Superpower, Asks World Cup Host To Arrest an Alleged Planner of AMIA Bombing

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