An Argentine judge ordered that 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals be tried in absentia over their alleged role in in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
The attack, which caused devastation in Latin America’s biggest Jewish community, has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group of carrying it out at Iran’s request.
In his ruling, Judge Daniel Rafecas acknowledged the “exceptional” nature of the decision to send the case to court over three decades after the bombing, with the suspects all still at large.
Trying them in absentia, he said, allowed to “at least try to uncover the truth and reconstruct what happened”.
On July 18, 1994, a man drove a van packed with explosives into the seven-storey Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building.
Argentine authorities named the suicide bomber as Lebanese Hezbollah militant Ibrahim Hussein Berro.
Besides the 85 fatalities, the deadliest attack in Argentina’s history injured more than 300 people.
No one has ever been arrested over the attack.
The 10 suspects facing trial are former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, most of whom have been the subject of Argentine arrest warrants since 2006.
Since 2006 Argentina had sought the arrest of eight Iranians, including then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Bahramaie Rafsanjani, who died in 2017.
Iran has always denied any involvement and refused to extradite the suspects.
The ruling to trying them in absentia is the first of its kind in the South American country.
Until March 2025, the country’s laws did not allow for suspects to be tried unless they were physically present.
It comes amid a new push from Argentina’s 300,000-strong Jewish community for justice to be served over the attack, backed by President Javier Milei, a staunch ally of Israel.
Judge Rafecas said a trial in absentia was both justified, given the “material impossibility of securing the presence of the defendants”, and necessary, to “prevent perpetual immunity” for those responsible.
The accused include former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who has called the allegations of his involvement “lies”, and former interior minister Ahmad Vahidi, former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian and former ambassador to Argentina Hadi Soleimanpour.
While the AMIA has in the past supported a trial in absentia, an association of the victims’ families had previously opposed the idea, saying it feared it would merely serve to “close the case without truth and without justice”.
Neither AMIA nor the association were available for comment on Thursday.
