BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s government asserted Friday that an ousted spymaster was involved in the murky events surrounding the death of a federal prosecutor who was investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center.
It said Antonio Stiusso, a shadowy former intelligence official who was removed from his post in December, had fed misleading information to the prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, over the course of his investigation.
The government also said Nisman did not even write a complaint in which President Cristina Fernández and top aides are accused of subverting his inquiry. Aníbal Fernández, the president’s chief of staff, said the 289-page complaint was of “awful legal quality,” raising doubts over whether it could have been written by someone with Nisman’s legal background.
The assertions of the involvement of Stiusso in the events around Nisman’s death follow an assertion Thursday by Cristina Fernández that the prosecutor’s death was not a suicide but part of an effort to destabilize her government.
Nisman, 51, was found dead here from a gunshot wound to the head Sunday, the day before he was to testify before lawmakers about his accusations.
Nisman had been investigating for a decade the Jewish center bombing in which 85 people were killed. The report filed by his office upended Argentina’s political establishment, exposing the president to a barrage of criticism over the prosecutor’s accusations while revealing upheaval in Argentina’s main intelligence agency.
The 10 police officers who were assigned to protect Nisman are being investigated for their actions on the day of the killing, the Associated Press reported, citing an official close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity. The officers are not considered suspects.
The official said, investigators are looking into the time it took two officers assigned to the door of Nisman’s building to advise their superiors that they had not been able to reach him by telephone.
Stiusso, who is believed to be in his early 60s, had a career in Argentina’s intelligence services spanning more than four decades. He wielded power as the director of operations at the Intelligence Secretariat, working for 12 years under Cristina Fernández and Néstor Kirchner, her husband and a former president who died in 2010. Efforts to reach Stiusso on Friday were unsuccessful.
The complaint issued by Nisman’s office relies extensively on intercepted phone calls thought to have been obtained from intelligence sources.
Nisman had accused Iranian officials of planning and financing the attack and Hezbollah of carrying it out.
He also accused the president and her top aides of secretly trying to reach a deal to shield Iranians charged with planning the bombing while seeking to expand trade ties.
The government has rejected the accusations.