Argentina Asks Interpol to Arrest Iran Minister over Jewish Center Bombing

Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi during a press conference. Reuters
Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi during a press conference. Reuters
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Argentina Asks Interpol to Arrest Iran Minister over Jewish Center Bombing

Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi during a press conference. Reuters
Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi during a press conference. Reuters

Argentina has asked Interpol to arrest Iran's interior minister over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.

The Iranian minister, Ahmad Vahidi, is part of a delegation from Tehran currently visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and Interpol has issued a red alert seeking his arrest at the request of Argentina, the ministry said in a statement.

Argentina has also asked those two governments to arrest Vahidi, it added, according to Agence France Presse.

On April 12, a court in Argentina placed blame on Iran for the 1994 attack against the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and for a bombing two years earlier against the Israeli embassy, which killed 29 people.

The 1994 assault has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected the Iran-backed group Hezbollah carried it out at Iran's request.

Prosecutors have charged top Iranian officials with ordering the attack, though Tehran has denied any involvement.

The court also implicated Hezbollah and called the attack against the AMIA -- the deadliest in Argentina's history -- a "crime against humanity."

Tuesday's statement from the foreign ministry said: "Argentina seeks the international arrest of those responsible for the AMIA attack of 1994, which killed 85 people, and who remain in their positions with total impunity."

"One of them is Ahmad Vahidi, sought by Argentine justice as one of those responsible for the attack against AMIA," said the statement, which was co-signed by the security ministry.

Argentina has previously stated that Vahidi, a former senior member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, is one of the key masterminds of the AMIA bombing and sought his extradition.



Syrian Pro-Assad Fighter Jailed For Life in Germany for Crimes Against Humanity

Cells in the basement of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate Branch 251, also known as Al-Khatib branch, in the capital Damascus. (AFP)
Cells in the basement of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate Branch 251, also known as Al-Khatib branch, in the capital Damascus. (AFP)
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Syrian Pro-Assad Fighter Jailed For Life in Germany for Crimes Against Humanity

Cells in the basement of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate Branch 251, also known as Al-Khatib branch, in the capital Damascus. (AFP)
Cells in the basement of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate Branch 251, also known as Al-Khatib branch, in the capital Damascus. (AFP)

A German court on Tuesday convicted a Syrian man of crimes against humanity and jailed him for life over offences committed during his time fighting for former President Bashar al-Assad.

The court in the city of Stuttgart found the former militiaman guilty of crimes including murder and torture after a trial which involved testimony from 30 witnesses.

Shortly after the outbreak of anti-Assad protests in early 2011, the man joined a pro-government militia in the southern town of Bosra al-Sham, according to AFP.

He proceeded to take part in several crimes against the local population with the aim of "terrorizing" them and driving them from the town, the court found.

German authorities have pursued several suspects for crimes committed in Syria's civil war under the principle of universal jurisdiction, even after Assad's ouster last December.

In 2022, former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan was found guilty of overseeing the murders of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others at the notorious Al-Khatib jail in 2011 and 2012.

That was the first international trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons and was hailed as "historic" by human rights activists.