BUENOS AIRES — An Argentine judge Thursday dismissed the criminal allegations against President Cristina Fernández that had been brought by Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor who had accused her of conspiring to shield Iranian officials from responsibility for the deadly bombing of a Jewish community center here in 1994.
The judge, Daniel Rafecas, decided that the criminal complaint that Nisman put forward before his mysterious death last month was not sufficient to open an investigation into the president. In a 63-page document released Thursday detailing his decision, Rafecas said the allegations did not “minimally hold up.”
The criminal case had been revived by another prosecutor after Nisman’s death, seeking to charge the president, the foreign minister, and other political supporters of Fernández .
The original complaint by Nisman, the lead investigator of the attack on the Jewish center, which left 85 people dead, had described a complex web of back-channel negotiations, accusing Argentina’s president of directing an effort to reduce pressure on Iranians wanted in connection with the bombing in exchange for trade benefits.
Rafecas’s decision to dismiss the case can be appealed by the prosecutor who revived Nisman’s accusation, said María Bourdin, a spokeswoman for the judiciary.
Investigators are trying to determine whether Nisman was killed or committed suicide. The lead investigator told the local media Wednesday that Nisman’s death was still “a great unsolved mystery.”
Nisman’s body was found a day before he was scheduled to appear before Congress to discuss his criminal complaint against the president and several top supporters. He had also drafted a request for Fernández’s arrest but did not include it in his complaint.
The sudden death of Nisman, who was found on the floor of his apartment with a gunshot wound to the head, stunned Argentina and exposed deep rifts in the nation.
Tens of thousands of Argentines poured into the center of Buenos Aires last week for a demonstration in honor of Nisman, and widely diverse theories have swirled since his death, with many Argentines saying in polls that they believed the government had a hand in it.
Fernández made it clear in January that she believed Nisman had been killed. She and her inner circle have cast suspicion on various figures, including the assistant who lent Nisman the gun that was found and the ousted spymaster who worked with Nisman during his investigation.
Fernández and the foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, have both rejected the assertions that they conspired with Iran, pointing to statements from Interpol’s former secretary general that they never sought to lift arrest warrants for Iranian officials wanted in connection with the 1994 bombing.
Still, the federal prosecutor who took up Nisman’s case this month sought to charge Fernández in connection with the claims of secret negotiations with Iranians.
In his decision to dismiss the case, Rafecas wrote that the assertion the foreign minister tried to get Interpol to lift arrest warrants against the Iranians was unfounded. The evidence, he wrote, contradicted the accusation “categorically and conclusively.”
Some of Fernández’s political opponents immediately sought to question the judge’s impartiality.
Jorge Lanata, an influential broadcast journalist who openly opposes the government, said in televised comments that the judge, Rafecas, was behaving “like a soldier of Kirchnerismo,” the name given to the political movement of Fernández and her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, who was president of Argentina from 2003 to 2007.
The office of the prosecutor who revived Nisman’s criminal case, Gerardo Pollicita, declined to say Thursday whether he would appeal the decision.