Los Abandandos- a new film on the Murder Mystery of Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman

Alberto Nisman assassination graphic

Greg Groesch/Washington Times

When Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was murdered under mysterious circumstances on January 18, 2015, we wrote of the curious circumstances surrounding his death. He was found dead in his Buenos Aires flat with a bullet to his head with a pistol allegedly in his possession. He was on the brink of presenting a 300 page brief to a committee of the Argentine Congress based on a decade of investigations. Investigations begun under the auspices of the late President of Argentina Nestor Kirchner and after his passing in 2007, for a time under his successor, his wife Cristina. Nisman’s death came amidst revelations about negotiations of a Memorandum of Understanding in 2013 between Iran and outgoing Argentine President Cristina de Fernandez Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timmerman regarding a truth commission. The object of the commission was to facilitate an expose of Iran’s and its proxy Hezbollah’s roles in both the 1992 Buenos Aires Israel Embassy and 1994 AMIA Buenos Aires, Jewish Center bombings. Bombings that killed 114, injuring 542.In exchange for no prosecution following the truth commission proceedings, Iran and Argentina would renew their commercial trade.

On the occasion of Nisman’s January 30, 2015 funeral and interment in the martyrs section of the La Tablada Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires we wrote in an Iconoclast Post, “There is No Justice in Argentina” :

Many in the Argentine Jewish Community considered that appropriate as they deemed him the “86^th victim” of the AMIA blast. In effect his burial in the Martyrs section repudiated initial official assessments from President Cristina de Fernandez Kirchner and the investigating prosecutor that he may have been a suicide. Kirchner quickly changed her story to a likely murder by rogue intelligence elements who had “manipulated” Nisman.

By the time outgoing President Cristina Kirchner gave her valedictory speech at the UN General Assembly on September 28, 2015, she referred to the dismissal and trial of officials in the country’s intelligence echelon who she alleged impeded the investigation saying, “prosecutor Nisman, in charge of the case, passed away.”

Cliff May, President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies attended a recent premier of a new documentary , Los Abandandos, (The Abandoned) about Nisman’s murder and the AMIA bombing investigations at Washington, DC’s, Newseum. . He published an opinion column in today’s Washington Times about the unsolved mystery of Nisman’s death and the comments of the film’s director, “Argentine Murder Mystery”.May noted:

The evidence, of which there is no shortage, leads to one conclusion: Iran’s rulers ordered the mass murder; Iran’s proxy terrorist organization, Hezbollah, carried out the mass murder; and in recent years Argentine officials at the highest levels have been involved in a cover-up of the mass murder.

May notes what possessed the director of Los Abandandos, Matthew Taylor, to pursue the story and create a riveting documentary:

To prevent the truth from passing away, Mr. Taylor went to Argentina where he quietly — he didn’t inform authorities — interviewed journalists, opposition politicians and anyone else brave enough to tell him what they knew. As the film shows, Argentines have gathered by the hundreds of thousands to protest what they see as their government’s capitulation to terrorists. Some have carried signs reading: “Islamic Fundamentalists Killed Nisman.”

In a conversation immediately following last week’s screening, Mr. Taylor was asked if he had made the movie to influence opinion about President Obama’s nuclear weapons agreement with Iran. When he began the project, he replied, he was not even aware of that controversy. But the film does serve, he added, as “a guide to what happens when you do deals with Iran.”

He pointed out that the AMIA bombing and the murder of Nisman started “with a nuclear deal” — an agreement Argentina made in the late 1980s to provide Iran with nuclear technology and assistance. Eventually, under pressure from the United States, the Argentine government did not give Iran’s revolutionary theocrats what they wanted.

One plausible theory — in essence, Nisman’s theory — is that the attack was Iran’s way of sending a message and a warning: “This time we kill Argentine Jews. Disappoint us again and who knows what our targets will be?”

May concluded:

Whatever the reasons, Mrs. Kirchner’s Faustian bargain necessitated abandoning both the AMIA victims and Nisman. Did it necessitate something even worse? That remains an unsolved murder mystery.

The Islamic fundamentalists who rule Iran are as determined and ruthless as any in the world. Their agents, including Hezbollah, are increasingly influential throughout much of Latin America.

Watch this You Tube video of the trailer for Los Abandandos:

Will the mystery of Nisman’s murder be resolved following the looming Argentine Presidential election on October 25^th?  That contest pits ruling Peronist Justicialist party candidate Daniel Scioli, the anointed successor to Kirchner, against  Buenos Aires Mayor, Mauricio Macri of the Center Right , PRO party. The latest polls taken show Scioli ahead of Macri, despite the former  not showing up for a televised Presidential debate Sunday; 41.3 % to Marci’s 30.5%.  There are five Presidential candidates in the race. The Buenos Aires Herald quoted Macri in late January 2015 saying, “The priority is to clarify the circumstances of  his death. We need to be respectful and allow the Judiciary to work. Nisman’s death cannot go unpunished.”  Should Scioli maintain his lead, we doubt that the mystery of Nisman’s death will be resolved anytime soon.