Argentine judge requests INTERPOL arrest Lebanese citizens in AMIA synagogue bombing case

An Argentine federal judge has issued an international arrest warrant notice to INTERPOL concerning four Lebanese citizens suspected of involvement in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentine media reported on Thursday.

The judge, Daniel Rafecas, issued the request for international arrest warrants for Hussein Mounir Mouzannar, Alí Hussein Abdallah, Abdallah Salman (also known as José El Reda) and Farouk Abdul Hay Omairi. At least some of the Lebanese citizens are suspected of being in Paraguay or Brazil.

Salman also has an arrest warrant out for him in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires.

According to La Nacion, Mouzannar has a Paraguayan ID and Abdallah has both Brazilian and Paraguayan citizenship. Omairi is seemingly in Brazil and Salman is seemingly living in Beirut.

Rafecas issued the request for the arrest warrants in response to a request by the investigation unit concerned with the AMIA case (UFI-AMIA), which used to be headed by prosecutor Alberto Nisman and is now headed by Sebastian Basso. The request was made based on new evidence gathered from abroad in the past three years.

Supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Amal Movement carry flags while riding in a convoy as votes are being counted in Lebanon’s parliamentary election, in Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon May 15, 2022. (credit: REUTERS/ISSAM ABDALLAH)

Lebanese citizens suspected of working for Hezbollah to conduct AMIA bombing

The request stated that concerning the individuals in question, “there are well-founded suspicions that they are collaborators or operational agents of the armed wing of Hezbollah.“

The request noted Samuel Salman El Reda, also known as Salman Raouf Salman, was one of the officials deemed “most responsible for the preparation and consummation” of the AMIA attack. El Reda carried out most of his activities from the area where the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet.

“At this point, it has been possible to identify some of those people who in principle would have collaborated with the actions carried out to achieve the attack by Samuel Salman El Reda in the aforementioned Triple Frontier,” Rafecas wrote, according to La Prensa.

85 people were killed when a suicide bomber drove a van full of explosives into the AMIA center and detonated it in 1994.

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