Wiesenthal Centre on Argentine AMIA Trial: “A Very Limited Justice for the Victims”

March 1, 2019

Buenos Aires and Paris

A long overdue judgment was reached yesterday in the trial of those who obfuscated the investigation of the 1994 AMIA Jewish Centre bombing, by covering-up the “local role,” and were thus complicit in the murder of 85 and wounding of over 300. Those investigated included President Carlos Menem and his retinue and the reported payment of $400,000 to divert the enquiry in 1996.

Photo: Former President Menem and Former Judge Galeano

The Court report will be made public only on 3 May, but Wiesenthal Centre officials, Dr. Shimon Samuels and Dr. Ariel Gelblung - respectively Director for International Relations and Representative for Latin America - stated that, “having monitored these proceedings from their inception, we view the judgments as disappointing...”

“Implicated was former Judge Galeano, for whom a prison sentence of six years appears to be hardly a lesson for his alleged degree of corruption and betrayal of the justice system...”

“Not to be confused with Iranian complicity as was subtantiated by Intepol, one ‘abanoned’ factor to be further investigated is the so-called ‘Syrian connection’, the role, if any, of then President Menem’s family of Syrian origin.”

“The judgment will surely be reviewed at a higher instance. The Wiesenthal Centre and other interested parties will call for penalties for all local participants in the atrocity... Granting them impunity would bring a very limited justice to the memory of the AMIA victims,” concluded Samuels and Gelblung.

For further information, please contact Dr.Shimon Samuels at +336 09770158 or Dr. Ariel Gelblung at +54 9 11 49695365, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).