In Argentina, Justice Is Elusive — Again

In Jerusalem, in 1977, I was in the audience when Octavio Paz, the Mexican writer and diplomat, received the Jerusalem Prize for Literature. In his acceptance speech, Paz said that if you think of a country as a human being, the country’s cultural achievements are its head and its human rights record is its body. That is, a healthy country needs both a robust body and a strong head.

Paz concluded that too often, Latin American countries — from Mexico to Argentina — have been comprised of a potent, creative head on top of a weak, shriveled body.

Argentina rightly prides itself on being a sophisticated and creative country with world-class literature, art and music. But its dismal human rights record puts it squarely into Paz’s category of strong head atop a feeble body—and its most recent incident has to do with the atrocious bombing of AMIA, the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires.

On July 18, 1994, at 9:53 A.M., a suicide bomber in a Renault van detonated 600 pounds of explosives near the entrance to AMIA, a center that has, for generations, provided educational, cultural and recreational services to the largest Jewish community in Latin America.

The explosion caused the five-story building to collapse, killing 85 people who were inside or near the Jewish center and injuring over 300.

There have been many investigations, trials and suggestions about the involvement of Iranian, Hezbollah, or Hamas officials, but no one has been convicted of anything involving the actual commission of this massive crime directed at the Jewish community.

Not one person.

That is why Argentina’s Jewish community was keeping close tabs on the recent trial of Carlos Telleldín, a former car mechanic who, at the time of the bombing, was dealing in stolen cars and car parts. He admitted to selling the van used in the bombing and was arrested soon after in 1994 — accused of being involved in filling the vehicle with explosives.

Telleldín was held in detention for many years, then finally tried and acquitted in 2003. His acquittal was revoked in 2009, and he was tried again for the same crime in 2019, a trial interrupted by the pandemic and conducted via teleconferencing.

In a statement to the court at his recent trial, Telleldín said, “I sold the van to someone who came because of an ad in the papers, and he paid me… I admit that I sold vehicles with stolen parts, but to say that I knew the van was going to be used in an attack is absurd.”

The three-judge panel agreed because, on December 23, the judges acquitted Telleldín of the same crime for the second time. The judges said they would make their deliberations public on March 26, 2021.

One widely-read Argentine publication agreed with the judges’ decision, pointing out that it was extremely unlikely that an Islamist terrorist organization would have included a small-time Argentine crook like Telleldín in its plan.

But Argentine-Jewish organizations reacted differently, scorning the judges’ verdict. AMIA (together with DAIA, Delegation of Argentine-Israelite Associations) issued a statement that the judges’ decision was “shameful” since it absolves the person who handed over the car used in the “worst terrorist act” in Argentina’s history. They said they would continue to seek “justice” for those who masterminded and collaborated to commit “the massacre,” starting first by appealing Telleldín’s verdict.

It is understandable that these organizations want to appeal, but it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that if Argentina’s past is prologue, they will probably not succeed. It is more likely that no one will ever be convicted of this crime and that the whole truth behind this sad event will never come to light.

It is more likely that no one will ever be convicted of the bombing of AMIA.

In the 26 years since the AMIA attack, Argentina has witnessed accusations, public demonstrations, lawsuits, volumes of testimony, videotaped bribery, at least one suspicious death, and countless indignant articles detailing Argentine malfeasance — all to no avail.

Just a few of the case’s Byzantine twists and turns included:

• Soon after the bombing, 22 Argentines were arrested and tried for abetting the attack. They were held for years, and after a three-year trial that was sharply criticized by independent observers, all 22 were found not guilty.
• In 2006, Argentine authorities accused specific Iranians of having masterminded the plot. This move was ignored by Iran and countermanded by a later Argentine government, which agreed to work with the Islamic Republic in finding the culprits.
• In 2015, prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead of a gunshot wound. Nisman was an Argentine Jewish attorney investigating the AMIA case and was prepared to accuse then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and then-Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman covering up Iran’s involvement in the bombing. Fernández’s government declared Nisman’s death a suicide, a claim that was disputed by those who were sure Nisman was murdered to prevent him from testifying.

In February 2019, a conference was held at Southwestern Law School, attempting to shed light on what has happened since the AMIA bombing. Gaston Chillier, an Argentine attorney and human rights activist who spoke on Skype from Buenos Aires, summed up the only point of consensus: “As of this day, Argentines do not have a full picture of what happened.”

And, most likely, they never will.

At the Southwestern Law School conference, Claudio Grossman — a Jewish Argentine who is Dean Emeritus of American University’s Law School — was realistic about hopes for a conviction, or at least some semblance of truth, in the AMIA case. In a somber, chastening tone, Grossman said that countries make decisions out of self-interest, not because it’s the moral thing to do.

In Argentina, that’s also true of judicial panels, like the one that acquitted Telleldín. Most Argentines assume that when it comes to government, the justice system and the police, there is always corruption. To that end, many Argentines are convinced that if the AMIA bombing culprits have evaded punishment, it’s because it was in the self-interest of those in positions of authority — at all levels.

This aspect of Argentine life is something that tourists, who fall in love with Argentina’s beauty and its many cultural charms, rarely see. But given Octavio Paz’s metaphor, tourists see only Argentina’s head, while those who live there have to deal with its body.

Roberto Loiederman has written extensively for the Jewish Journal and is co-author of “The Eagle Mutiny,” a nonfiction account of the only mutiny on a U.S. ship in modern history.