Lima, Peru/Sao Paulo, Brazil: The presence of an Iranian vice president at the inauguration ceremony of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has sparked outrage in the Latin American Jewish community.
Mohsin Rezai, Vice President for Economic Affairs, represented Iran at Ortega’s inauguration on Monday.
The Sandinista leader, who has ruled the Central American country since 2007, was sworn in for his fourth consecutive mandate.
Rezai, who led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for 16 years, is part of a group of Iranian officials that in 1994 bombed the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association building, known by the Spanish acronym AMIA.
85 people were killed and more than 200 injured when an explosives-laden truck exploded at a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, a city with an estimated population of 200,000 Jews, the largest such community in Latin America. Is.
A lengthy investigation by Argentine authorities with the help of Israeli and US intelligence resulted in the 2006 arrest of Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Coral against former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani and other senior officials, including Rezai.
A member of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah was also part of Canikoba’s arrest warrant. Since 2007, the group behind the bombing has been on Interpol’s wanted list.
The attack on AMIA was the second terrorist attack on Jewish targets in Argentina. Two years earlier, in 1992, an explosion at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people.
Charges against Rezi were further strengthened by his own son, Ahmed, who left Iran for the US in 1998 and told US officials that the attack was planned by Tehran and that Hezbollah was involved.
After a short time in the US, he returned to Iran and withdrew his previous claims. He was found dead in a hotel in Dubai in 2011.
Rezai dismissed Argent’s allegations as “outright lies” in a 2009 interview with the Los Angeles Times. He said he was traveling internationally and never had any problems.
Indeed, he has not been detained because of his visit to Nicaragua. He not only attended the inauguration, but also met on Thursday with Ortega, his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, Sandinista newspaper E19 reported.
Fernando Lautenberg, the Organization of the US State Commissioner for Surveillance and Anti-Zionism, issued a formal rebuttal of Rezai’s visit to Nicaragua, emphasizing that he is “under Interpol red alert and Nicaragua, as one of the institution’s Must be taken as a member. Out of custody order.”
Lautenberg, the former head of the Brazil-Israeli Confederation, told Arab News that he and other members of the Latin American Jewish community are concerned about the apparent proximity of Iran and some countries in the region.
“The Iranians have a long standing relationship with Venezuela. The process seems to be reaching other countries.”
“Rizzi attended Ortega’s opening ceremony and also took pictures with Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel.”
Lautenberg said, the Jewish community is “concerned about such ties established by nations in our region with an antagonistic and authoritarian regime.”
He said Nicaragua announced its intention to leave the OAS in November 2021, but the country still had to fulfill its obligations with the organization for two years. “It’s not an automated process,” he explained.
AMIA issued a statement on Tuesday confirming its demand to “closely monitor Iranian defendants when they leave their countries, so that they cannot move freely through the nations that protect them.” Huh.” ,
The statement said: “Nearly 28 years after the attack on its headquarters, AMIA reiterates its unwavering commitment to the pursuit of justice and demands that those responsible for crimes against humanity have constitutional guarantees established by law. Be prosecuted. Apna Desh.”
AMIA said that the Argentine ambassador to Nicaragua, Daniel Capitanich, attended the ceremony and “did not leave the premises nor alert the authorities of such a dire situation.”
Over the past few days, opposition members of Congress in Argentina have condemned the administration of President Alberto Fernández for sending Capitanich to the inauguration.
The Argentine chancellor said Capitanich did not know that Rezzi would be present. Argentine Foreign Ministry later issued a statement opposing Reiji’s presence.