Argentina condemned 30 years after attack on Jewish community

People hold up pictures of victims at a commemoration ceremony 23 years after the terrorist attack on the Jewish community AMIA in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Three decades after hundreds of people were killed and injured in the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, an international court on Friday condemned the Argentinian state for its actions before and after the attack. Fernando Gens/dpa

Three decades after hundreds of people were killed and injured in the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, an international court on Friday condemned the Argentinian state for its actions before and after the attack.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the authorities had neither taken measures to prevent the incident nor initiated a full investigation to find and try the perpetrators.

The court based in San José, Costa Rica, ordered Argentina to finally bring the guilty parties to justice.

The court proceedings dragged on for 25 years before the ruling. Two years ago, the Argentinian government had already admitted its responsibility for the failures.

On July 18, 1994, a total of 85 people died as a result of the blast at the Amia community centre in the Argentinian capital. A further 300 were injured.

The Shiite militia Hezbollah carried out the attack on the orders of the Iranian government, an Argentinian court recently established.

During the tenure of former President Cristina Kirchner from 2007-2015, the Argentinian government agreed with Tehran to place the investigation in the hands of an international truth commission.

The special prosecutor for the probe into the assassination, Alberto Nisman, was found shot dead in his flat in 2015 after he charged Kirchner with obstruction of justice and a cover-up.

© Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH