CROKKS ELECTED TO ARGENTINE SENATE HAVE IMMUNITY FROM IMPRISONMENT

Argentina judge orders arrest of ex-president Cristina Kirchner for 'covering up Iranian involvement in a 1994 bombing at a Buenos Aires Jewish center that left 85 people dead'

By Charlie Moore

Daily Mail
December 7, 2017

A judge in Argentina yesterday ordered the arrest of former president Cristina Kirchner on charges of 'treason against the fatherland.'

She is accused of covering up Iranian involvement in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that left 85 people dead.

No culprits have ever been found for the country's worst terror attack.

Kirchner allegedly offered immunity to Iranian suspects in exchange for Iranian oil.

The alleged deal is said to have allowed the suspects to be interviewed by Argentine magistrates in Tehran rather than in Buenos Aires.

Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman filed a criminal claim accusing Kirchner in January 2015.

A day before he was due to give evidence to congress he was found dead at home with a bullet in his head.

Kirchner has previously called the case an 'absurdity' and part of a campaign to undermine her presidency.

Her aide said today that she first heard of the arrest order when reading the papers.

Kirchner, 64, who had two four-year terms in office from 2007-2015, is due to take her seat in the Senate next week after her election victory in October crowned a political comeback and granted her immunity from imprisonment in several corruption cases.

The Senate will now have to vote on lifting her immunity at the judge's request, for which a two-thirds majority is needed.

Argentine newspaper Clarin reported that this was unlikely, meaning she won't be arrested.

Kirchner's leftist alliance in the Senate has a total of 32 seats with around a dozen senators are in the Kirchner camp.

The center-right Cambiemos alliance of President Mauricio Macri has 25 seats in the upper house.

Judge Carlos Bonadio also ordered the arrest of former foreign minister Hector Timerman and several other former officials in the Kirchner governments.

The ex-head of the Federal Intelligence Agency, Oscar Parrilli, was ordered not to leave the country.

Bonadio took over the case after prosecutor Alberto Nisman, which was filed four days before his mysterious death on January 18, 2016.

The Jewish center bombing case is the most serious before Kirchner, who is facing trial in several other cases involving corruption and money-laundering stemming from her years as president.

Several prominent members of her former government have been detained on corruption charges in recent weeks, including ex-public works minister Julio De Vido and Amado Boudou, Kirchner's vice-president from 2011-2015.