Cristina Kirchner Says Alberto Nisman Was Murdered, While Reporter Who Broke News Flees Argentina

Cristina Kirchner, the President of Argentina, is currently dealing with one of the worst political crises of a presidency marked by flailing public support, and a grim economic outlook. Jewish prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead in his apartment early Monday morning in what was first debated to be a suicide, and now has been called a murder by Kirchner herself.

Alberto’s death came only hours before he was set to testify that Kirchner had bargained a trade deal with Iran in exchange for erasing the Shiite Muslim country’s ties to a terrorist bombing that killed scores of Jewish citizens in Buenos Aires in 1994, as previously reported by the Inquisitr.

Tens of thousands of Argentines took to the street the day the news broke to voice their position that Alberto’s blood was on Kirchner’s hands, but those protests have also been met with the opposition of Cristina’s adamant supporters — some of whom claim that the entire ordeal is a conspiracy against their president.

The case — which has seized the Argentine media’s unwavering attention — sees constant new developments. Kirchner’s newest statement was released in English, which indicates she is feeling international pressure on the issue, according to a Friday English-language podcast summarizing the Nisman debacle from The Bubble.

That letter, published in full on Cristina’s official website, notes that before Alberto’s death, several publications — including The Buenos Aires Herald, which broke the news of Nisman’s death — had already published editorials saying that Alberto’s accusations held little weight. Kirchner instead points to rogue agents as the possible culprits in Nisman’s murder.

“Prosecutor Nisman’s accusation was never, in itself, the true operation against the Government. It was bound to fall apart after the very first steps. Nisman did not know this —he probably never did. The true operation against the Government was the Prosecutor’s death after accusing the President, the Foreign Minister, and the Secretary General of La Cámpora of being accessories to the Iranians accused of the terrorist bombing of AMIA.”

That “true operation” was a part of widespread intelligence agency conspiracy against the president, according to the letter. Chief of Staff, Aníbal Fernandez, told Reuters that those rogue agents fed evidence to Alberto in order to rile up a case against Cristina.

“When he was alive they needed him to present the charges against the president. Then, undoubtedly, it was useful to have him dead.”

Saturday’s most prominent development in the case was the fleeing of Damián Pachter — the journalist who first broke the case — after hearing from a close source that his life may be in danger. In his final interview before his hasty exit, he told The Bubble that even he had not yet decided what the link was between Kirchner and Nisman’s death.

“There is a connection between these events; this is not just one mysterious episode. It is more complex. I will pass judgement when I have the results of the official investigation.”

Cristina Kirchner is now facing calls for an international investigation into Alberto Nisman’s death. The whole ordeal comes with less than a year remaining for Cristina as Argentine head of state.

[Image via Taringa]