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Argentina asks Qatar to arrest high-ranking Iranian official

Mohsen Rezai, Tehran’s VP for economic affairs, led the Revolutionary Guard Corps at the time of the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires.

AMIA Bombing Memorial
Thousands of people attended a memorial in Argentina for the 85 people killed and more than 300 others wounded in the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, July 18, 2022. Credit: Ellie Cohanim.

Mohsen Rezai, Iran’s vice president for economic affairs, is wanted by Argentine prosecutors for alleged involvement in planning the July 18, 1994, terrorist attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA, which killed 85 people and injured 330.

Rezai, commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the time of the bombing in Buenos Aires, is one of several senior Iranian officials accused by Argentina of masterminding the suicide attack on the country’s main Jewish community center.

Special prosecutors petitioned Argentina’s foreign ministry, requesting that all applicable diplomatic levers be employed and citing an outstanding Interpol red notice against Rezai and newspaper clippings revealing his visit to Qatar, Argentina’s state-owned Télam news agency reported.

The ministry authorized the special prosecutor’s request after confirming Rezai’s presence in the Gulf country, Agence France-Press reported, citing a diplomatic source.

The ministry “requested the collaboration of Interpol for the arrest,” while Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero “instructed the Argentine ambassador in Doha...to communicate urgently with the Qatari Foreign Ministry and report on the situation,” the source said.

“It is disturbing to see some corners of our justice system treat the life of a Jewish American as worth so little,” Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, told JNS.
“We are more scared than ever,” Jewish activist Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi told JNS. “Despite the overall reduction in the number of instances, the severity of instances is terrifying.”
“I was eventually told by the police that there’s not much that they could do and the case would ultimately get thrown out,” Nir Golan told a public inquiry of the 2023 attack.
The analysis found that Cole Allen, who faces multiple felony charges for the April 25 attack, had “multiple social and political grievances” and cited his social media posts criticizing the war.
A spokesman for the New York City Economic Development Corporation told JNS that a Japan page was also taken down.
The incident occurred as America continues its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.