Argentine Prosecutor Seeks Indictment of 10 Suspects — Including Iran’s New IRGC Chief — in 1994 AMIA Bombing Case

The lead prosecutor in the case of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires on Wednesday requested the indictment of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of involvement in the deadly attack.

Among those named was Ahmad Vahidi, who on Sunday was appointed the new head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an Iranian military force and internationally designated terrorist organization. He replaced Mohammad Pakpour, who was killed last week during the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, which has resulted in the death of several high-ranking officials.

In 1994, Vahidi commanded the IRGC’s Quds Force, which is responsible for managing Iran’s proxies and terrorist operations abroad. Argentine President Javier Milei designated the force as a foreign terrorist organization in January, as the country’s Jewish community marked the 11th anniversary of the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who investigated the AMIA bombing.

“What I asked was for authorities to move swiftly against the 10 defendants so a trial in absentia can be held as soon as possible and the public can see the evidence the Argentine state has compiled over the past 30 years,” the current Argentine prosecutor on the case, Sebastian Basso, told local news outlet Radio Mitre.

The 10 suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the country’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.

Last year, Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Nisman — also requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.

Basso’s legal action marked a significant departure from Argentina’s previous stance in the case, under which the Iranian leader was regarded as having diplomatic immunity. 

Khamenei was also killed during Saturday’s US-Israeli strikes targeting senior Iranian leadership in Tehran.

Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.

Despite Interpol issuing red notices for their arrest, neither Iran nor Lebanon has granted their extradition, allowing the suspects to remain beyond the reach of Argentine authorities.

“It was them who carried out the attack,” Basso said. “They are puppets of Iran and both the masterminds and perpetrators behind the bombing.”

According to Basso, the investigation unit made contact in 2025 with a group of Iranian dissidents who provided inside information that helped advance the case.

“That was vital for us, because it allowed us to reconstruct what happened in Iran, understand how the regime works, and how Hezbollah was created and sustained,” the Argentine prosecutor said.

Last year, Argentina ordered, for the first time, that suspects be tried in absentia following a legal change in March that removed the requirement for defendants to be physically present in court.

Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.

Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and has refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.

To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.

In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.

Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.

Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.

The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.

However, Milei, who took office in 2023, branded Iran “an enemy” of his country last year and has expressed strong support for his country’s Jewish community and the State of Israel.