Argentine bomb police 'to testify'

By Elliott Gotkine BBC correspondent in Buenos Aires

The Argentine president is to order the secret service to testify in a court case over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires, the BBC has been told.

The lawyer representing victims of the bombing told the BBC that President Nestor Kirchner was to sign a decree forcing the country's secret police to appear in court.

Flashback: Argentina bomb

Separately, an Argentine newspaper has revealed that a former cultural attache to the country's embassy in Iran is being investigated in connection with the bombing.

The bombing of the Jewish Mutual Aid Association (Amia) in 1994 killed 85 and left more than 200 people injured.

Members of Argentina's National Intelligence Service - while not directly implicated in the attack - have long been accused of deliberately misleading the investigation.

Menem connection

Now they will have to account for their actions in court.

Many suspect that Carlos Menem, who was Argentina's president at the time, was also involved.

Argentina's leading newspaper, Clarin, says prosecutors are now looking into his relationship with a former cultural attache to the Argentine Embassy in Iran.

Carlos Lelli is being investigated amid allegations he was the intermediary used by Mr Menem when he allegedly received $10 million from Iran, in exchange for not accusing the Islamic Republic of the Amia bombing.

But Mr Lelli will not be testifying. He died in a car crash in August 2000, just two months after a former Iranian intelligence official made the $10 million claim.