Argentina to dissolve domestic spy agency
January 27, 2015
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced a draft bill on Monday to dissolve the the country's domestic intelligence agency. The deicision came amid government suspicions that rogue agents were behind the murky death of state prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed 85 people.
"The plan is to dissolve the Intelligence Secretariat and create a Federal Intelligence Agency" with a leadership chosen by the president but subject to Senate approval, said Kirchner. She added that reforming the intelligence services was a "national debt" that the South American country has had since the return of democracy in 1983.
Suspicious death
Nisman was found shot dead in the bathroom of his Buenos Aires apartment late on January 18 with a bullet wound to his head, and a 22 caliber handgun and a bullet casing by his body.
In the week leading up to his death, Nisman accused Kirchner of back channel deals with Iran so as to avoid investigating the Jewish community center attack. A legal suit filed by Nisman accused her of working to absolve the Iranian officials who were alleged to have orchestrated the attack.
A day after his death, Nisman was due to testify in a closed-door hearing with Congress over his claim.
The initial suspicion was that the 51-year-old had taken his own life. Kirchner said last Thursday, however, that she believed Nisman's death was part of a plot to mire her government in scandal.
Journalists 'safe'
Also on Monday, Argentina's cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich pledged that journalists were safe to work in the South American country, after one journalist, Damian Pachter fled to Israel "in fear of his life."
Pachter, who broke the news of Nisman's mysterious death, said that before leaving Argentina, he was being followed and his phone was being tapped.
The Argentine government later came under fire again after they published Pachter's travel details on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
ksb/bw (Reuters, AFP)