Argentina’s Supreme Court has ordered former President and Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to stand trial for the signing of a memorandum between Argentina and Iran regarding the 1994 AMIA bombing. 

The court also confirmed a ruling acquitting her and Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof in the so-called “dollar futures” case, in the second of two rulings released Thursday.

The memorandum with Iran was a document signed between the governments of Argentina and Iran during Kirchner’s second presidential term. It would have enabled Argentine prosecutors to interrogate Iranian citizens accused of involvement in the bombing. The document was approved by both chambers of congress. 

In 2015, prosecutor Alberto Nisman filed a lawsuit against Kirchner, officials from her administration and political leaders, alleging that the memorandum amounted to an impunity pact. He claimed that the negotiations over the memorandum involved revoking international arrest warrants against the Iranian citizens involved. In exchange, he said, Iran would import wheat from, and sell oil to, Argentina.

Interpol later told the judge investigating the memorandum that the executive branch did not have the authority to negotiate the removal of the warrants. Argentina never imported oil from Iran, either.

The accused are:

Eduardo Zuain
Carlos Zannini
Oscar Parrilli
Angelina Abbona
Juan Martín Mena
Andrés Larroque
Luis D’Elía
Fernando Esteche
Jorge Khalil
Ramón Bogado

Héctor Timerman, Kirchner’s foreign minister, was also charged, but passed away from cancer in 2018.

The memorandum case was initially taken up by a federal court. The defense argued that no crime had been committed. After a series of hearings, the court acquitted Kirchner and the other accused parties. Kirchner’s position is that taking the memorandum case to court constitutes the “undue judicialization of acts of a strictly political nature that, as such, are exempt from revision by the judicial branch,” according to the Supreme Court’s summary of proceedings.

However, the prosecution argued that the case was not limited to the signing of an international pact, but also involved “parallel channels” of negotiation with illegal intent.

The prosecution proceeded to take the case to the Federal Criminal Cassation Chamber, which overturned the acquittal. Kirchner’s lawyers then presented an extraordinary appeal, but were denied permission to continue the proceedings. This was the matter that the Supreme Court ruled on on Thursday.

The court’s decision was based on technicalities and did not discuss the underlying issue of the memorandum or examine the evidence on file. 

A date for the trial has not yet been set. Kirchner had not publicly commented on the ruling at the time of writing.

The AMIA, a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, was destroyed by a bomb on July 18, 1994, killing 85 people and injuring over 300. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere until the September 11 attack. The investigation into the attack was hampered by corruption and cover-up attempts, and the case has become a divisive political issue in Argentina. 

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Nisman was found dead in the bathroom of his apartment the day he was supposed to speak in Congress about his allegations that Kirchner and Timerman had covered for Iranian authorities who were being investigated on suspicions of masterminding the attack.

The judicial investigation into his death has switched back and forth between treating it as a murder and a suicide. It is currently classified as a murder, but the investigation does not state who the alleged perpetrator was. Kirchner has always denied participating in a cover-up and is not under investigation.

The dollar futures case

The dollar futures case was originally filed by deputies from the PRO and UCR parties. They alleged that the Central Bank had improperly handled dollar futures contracts by making deals at off-market rates between August and November of 2015. 

The Cassation Chamber acquitted Kirchner and a series of other officials — including Kicillof, who was economy minister at the time — after expert witnesses found that there was no evidence of harm to the state’s finances.

Prosecutors appealed that case, but the Supreme Court upheld the decision to acquit Kirchner, Kicillof and the other defendants on Thursday.