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Alberto Nisman, 51, has been investigating since 2004 the murderous attack on the Amia in 1994 in Buenos Aires. REUTERS / Marcos Brindicci / File

Murder or suicide? Five years later, the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman remains unresolved. But new revelations highlight the role of intelligence agents. He accused Cristina Kirchner of wanting to whitewash the Iranians allegedly responsible for the attack on the Jewish mutual insurance company Amia.

From our correspondent in Buenos Aires,

Officially, Alberto Nisman has been assassinated . So decided a judge two years ago, on the basis of a controversial investigation by the gendarmerie. Those who think he was killed are mobilizing this January 18 to defend his memory and demand that the culprits be identified. As a rule, they point the finger at Cristina Kirchner, now vice-president. But those who believe that he committed suicide - or that he was pushed to do so - recall that the investigation in question, ordered under the government of the Liberal Mauricio Macri, came to contradict the results of two autopsies carried out by the best experts in the country immediately after the death of the prosecutor. In fact, Peronist President Alberto Fernández , who succeeded Macri in December 2019, has just declared that the work of the gendarmes " lacked scientific rigor ".

If the politicization of the case, which does not escape justice, is far from contributing to the clarification of the death of Nisman, recent journalistic investigations have brought new elements on the circumstances of it. In particular, a documentary by the British Justin Webster broadcast on Netflix exclusively for Argentina and titled The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy . This last character is Antonio Jaime Stiuso, a strong intelligence man for more than four decades and who was known to have been Nisman's main informant on the attack on the Jewish mutual insurance company Amia , which left 85 dead and 300 injured on July 18, 1994.

Unpublished images and testimonies

With previously unseen images and testimonies, Webster's film shows that the role of Stiuso, whose disturbing figure dominates the six hours of the documentary, has been more important than imagined. It is he who convinces Nisman of the responsibility of Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah in the attack, apparently without too much evidence, causing the latter to rule out other avenues, including that of a certain "Syrian connection", which would not have suited the government of the day. When questioned by Webster, an American FBI agent who took part in the investigation, even believes that everything was done to arrive at a " pre-determined conclusion ", which also arranged the United States and Israel.

Could the same be said of the reconstruction carried out by the gendarmerie, which concluded in a murder committed by two people, when the autopsies had ruled out the presence of third parties on the scene? Recall that Nisman died of a bullet to the head, fired by a pistol found by his side in the bathroom of his apartment. He was lying in a pool of blood and the body was blocking the door to the room in question. The documentary presents the photos taken by the judicial police officers when the body was discovered. As we know from autopsies that the latter was not moved, according to an expert who analyzes the images, the disposition of the blood on the ground excludes that Nisman was not alone when the bullet was fired.

The assassination thesis challenged?

Without being able to speak out, Webster seems to rule out the murder. But why would Nisman have taken his life this Sunday January 18, 2015? Four days earlier, he had accused President Cristina Kirchner of wanting Iranian suspects to stop being prosecuted by Argentine justice for their alleged responsibility in the attack on the Amia.

According to him, that would be the secret objective of the agreement signed with the Iranian government two years earlier and providing that the latter could be interrogated in Tehran. Kirchner said the deal was just to get things done, as Iran refused to extradite its nationals. In any case, according to most jurists, the indictment did not provide evidence of these allegations.

In Argentina, the suspicious death of prosecutor Nisman has shocked many people, who are seeking justice, as here in Buenos Aires, on January 21, 2015. REUTERS / Enrique Marcarian

Invited to present it to Congress on Monday 19 by opposition deputies, Nisman was awaited by the parliamentarians of the Kirchnerist majority who affirmed that they were going to " demolish it ". According to numerous witnesses, he was promised evidence that he never received. This would be the reason for his nervousness in the 24 hours preceding his death, as evidenced by various exchanges collected by the documentary. The prosecutor also questions the information provided to him by an agent who appears to be not part of the intelligence services. He tries to reach Stiuso, with whom he had always had close contact, but the latter does not answer his calls. Would he have realized that he had been the victim of a manipulation when he could no longer retreat? There is also talk of possible blackmail.

The role of the secret services in question

You should know that at the time, an internal war shook the secret services. A month earlier, for unknown reasons, Cristina Kirchner abruptly dismissed Antonio Stiuso. But the man who has ruled intelligence for over 40 years, replaced by one of his enemies, still has a lot of support, inside and outside the "house". So there were spies for and against the government at the time. What role did they play in Nisman's death? It is not known, but they were not far behind, as two surveys published by the country's main newspapers, La Nación and Clarín , seem to prove.

The first reports on hundreds of telephone communications between members of two rival groups of secret agents or ex-secret agents on Sunday January 18, when the prosecutor died at his home but no one knows it yet because his body will be discovered in the night from Sunday to Monday. The second testifies to the presence of an agent throughout the weekend near the home of Nisman's collaborator who was supposed to have supplied him, on Saturday evening and at his request, with the pistol that killed him. This member of the intelligence services is then in permanent contact with one of his superiors located in the district where the prosecutor lived.

Will this information advance the investigation into the death of Alberto Nisman? It will doubtless depend on the collaboration which the current intelligence services will be willing to lend, the direction of which has been renewed by the government of Alberto Fernández. But also the desire to advance justice, which we know does not escape political influence.