ARGENTINE PROVIDES DOCUMENTS INVOLVING EX IRANIAN DIPLOMAT
ROME 16 Sept. (IPS) With the next trial of Mr. Hadi Soleymanpour due on 19 September, the Argentinean Judge that has issued an international warrant against him and eight other officials from the Islamic Republic of Iran has send a 600 pages document to a London Court that tries him, according to Argentine press.
Mr. Soleymanpour, a former Iranian ambassador to Argentine is accused by Judge Juan Jose Galeano to have participated in the bombing of the Jewish Centre in Buenos Aires on July 1994, killing more than eighty people and wounding 300 others.
Tehran has vehemently denied the charges, stating that the accusation is politically motivated and taken under heavy pressures from Washington and Tel-Aviv.
The ex-diplomat was arrested on 21 August in Durham, north of England, where he is a research student at the city’s prestigious university and was held in a prison in London, but was released last week on a 750.000 British Pounds of bail by an Appeal Court, requiring Mr. Galeano to provide more convincing documents concerning Mr. Soleymanpour activities in the bombing.
To protest the arrest of Mr. Soleymanpour, Iran recalled briefly his Envoy from Britain and cut all trade and cultural ties with Buenos Aires.
According to Mr. Ahmad Ra’fat, a Rome Correspondent for "Radio Farda" (Tomorrow), the Persian service of the Prague-based Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty, Judge Galeano has told "La Nacion" daily that he is determined to have Mr. Soleymanpour prosecuted and eventually secure his extradition to Argentine.
Besides Mr. Soleymanpour, Interpol also seeks Iran’s former Intelligence Minister Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian and Hojjatoleslam Mohsen Rabbani, the then Iran’s cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires.
Though Mr. Galeano had issued his international warrant on early August, it is not known why Mr. Soleymanpour did not left Britain on time, or why the Iranian authorities did not ordered him back home immediately?
Shelved for lack of sufficient proof under President Carlos Menem, accused by some American papers of receiving a 10 million US Dollars bribe from Tehran, the case was re-activated after Mr. Nestor Kirchner became President, promising that he would bring all the culprits to trial. ENDS DIPLOMAT ARRESTED 16903