Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor whose mysterious death set off a political firestorm in Argentina, was buried in a Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires near several of the victims who died in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in the Argentinian capital.
He was found slumped against the door of his apartment bathroom, a bullet hole in his head and his friend’s handgun by his side, one day before he was to testify before Argentina’s National Congress about his investigation on the AMIA bombing whcih killed 85 and injured dozens.
Nisman, 51, had just filed a criminal complaint against Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her inner circle for allegedly making secret deals to forgive Iranian officials in the bombing in exchange for increased trade.
Argentine courts have accused Iran of sponsoring the 1994 bombing.
In 2013, Fernandez tried to form a "truth commission" with Iran to jointly investigate the bombing. She said at the time that the pact would reactivate the probe, but Israel and Jewish groups said it threatened to derail criminal prosecution of the case.
The truth commission pact was later struck down by an Argentine court.
Nisman had said the truth commission was intended to help get Interpol arrest warrants dropped against five Iranian suspects as a step toward normalizing bilateral relations.
At his funeral, hundreds of protesters, convinced that he was a victim of foul play, gathered in front of the cemetery, some holding placards demanding “Justice for Nisman”.
His ex-wife Sandra Arroyo Salgado, a federal judge, read letters from the couple’s two daughters. She said she was convinced Nisman did not commit suicide.
“None of us believe that you were the maker of this end. We are certain that it was the work of another person. We do not know who,” she said, according to the newspaper La Nación.
Leaders of the Jewish community spoke at the funeral, including Waldo Wolff, the vice president of an umbrella group of Jewish organizations, including the one that was bombed in 1994, killing 85 people.