Prosecutor says Hezbollah behind AMIA bombing

10 November 2005

November 10, 2005

The Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman has told reporters that member of the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah had carried out a suicide bombing against the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires in 1994. 85 people were killed and 300 wounded in the attack. Nisman told reporters that he was able to identify the man as Ibrahim Hussein Berro. The prosecutor added that his conclusion was based on "work by Argentina's secretary of intelligence, along with the FBI of the United States and with corroboration by statements of at least three witnesses." He said that Hussein, 21 at the time, was a member of the Shiite group Hezbollah. On Wednesday, Argentina's president Nestor Kirchner publicly backed the work of Nisman. The latter said that two Hussein brothers living in the United States testified that Ibrahim had been a Hezbollah member. Nisman added that the brothers had agreed to DNA tests so that their genetic material could be compared with human remains found at the site of the attack. The third witness was an Argentine nurse who said that the photograph was similar to a suspicious man she saw moments before the blast driving a white car.