Iran Rejects Argentine Court Accusations as ‘Political Plot’

TEHRAN, 8 October 2003 — Iran said yesterday that testimony its diplomats were behind the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina is a “political plot against the Islamic Republic”, state news agency IRNA reported.

A former Iranian agent testified Wednesday that Tehran carried out the attack, repeating accusations that have led to the indictment of several former Iranian diplomats and soured relations between the two countries.

“The attack was led, orchestrated and executed by Iran. Moshen Rabbani was in charge,” Abolghasem Mesbahi testified from the Argentine embassy in Berlin through a video link to a courtroom in Buenos Aires. Rabbani, former Iranian cultural attache in Buenos Aires, is one of eight Iranian diplomats sought by Argentina in the attack, which destroyed an office tower on a busy street, killing 85 and injuring 300.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi responded by saying “the baseless remarks by a novice guy are the lies that have been devised by Zionist circles and the judge in the case to cover up their political plot against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

He was freed on bail on Sept. 12 after his lawyers convinced a judge in London that he would not try to flee the country while his extradition is pending.

Meanwhile, Iran’s national security chief Hasan Rowhani is due to hold talks today with the director of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency ahead of a much-awaited report on whether Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons.

Rowhani will meet with Mohamed El-Baradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has demanded that Iran stop enriching uranium, which could be used to build a bomb, and agree to snap inspections of its nuclear sites. “It’s clear they have a lot to talk about,” a diplomat close to the IAEA said about Rowhani’s meeting with El-Baradei in Vienna.