By Charles Newbery
BUENOS AIRES
A new twist emerged Wednesday in the case of a prosecutor found dead days after accusing the president of an alleged cover-up in a deadly Jewish center bombing involving Iran.
Initial beliefs are that Alberto Nisman committed suicide on Sunday after filing a report last week that pointed the finger at President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in the suspected cover-up in the 1994 bombing.
The locksmith who opened the door to Nisman’s 13th-floor apartment where the lawyer was found, said it was an easy job.
After testifying before Viviana Fein, the prosecutor investigating Nisman’s death, the locksmith, who gave only his first name as Walter, said when he went to the Buenos Aires apartment the front door was locked with an electronic coding system.
He said Nisman’s mother asked him to open the service door to the kitchen that he told Radio Mitre “was open.”
“All I did was use a wire to push the key that was inserted [in the lock] from within. Then I asked the mother of the prosecutor for the key and just turned the latch. But the door was open. This could have done by anybody.”
Walter’s version differs somewhat with the initial statement by the Security Ministry, which said Monday that when police arrived at the apartment building the service door was locked with the key on the inside, making it impossible for Nisman’s mother to open the door with her keys.
The locksmith opened the door and Nisman’s body was found in the bathroom with a gunshot to the head, according to the Security Ministry,
Sergio Berni, the ministry’s secretary of security who was at the apartment at the time, later said that he suspected suicide.
“In criminology, when you have a body, a gun and a casing, all roads lead to suicide,” Berni said, adding that further studies would be needed to confirm his theory.
So far, the tests have been inconclusive.
On Tuesday, Fein said the forensics team didn’t find gunpowder on Nisman’s right hand, but explained that this could be the result of the small size of the .22 caliber handgun found at the scene.
She said the test was not enough to disprove Nisman probably pulled the trigger, but added that she has kept to her initial declaration of a “suspicious death.”
Judge Sandra Elizabeth Arroyo Salgado, Nisman’s ex-wife and mother of his two daughters, told Clarin newspaper Tuesday that she doesn’t believe that the prosecutor killed himself.
In another possible twist, there may have been a possible third entry to Nisman’s apartment – through an air conditioning duct from a neighboring apartment – where detectives found a footprint and fingerprint, news agency DyN reported Wednesday.
The adjacent apartment is owned by a foreign citizen who is not Iranian, according to the report that also said workmen use the duct to service the building’s air conditioning system.
Nisman made headlines Jan. 14 after accusing the president, her foreign minister, Hector Timerman, and other officials and supporters of trying to cover up Iran’s alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center that killed 85 people, the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina.
The prosecutor, who has been investigating the bombing since 2004, said he believed the ploy stemmed from Argentina’s need to buy oil and natural gas supplies from the Republic in exchange for beef and grains.
In subsequent comments to the press, Nisman said he “could end up dead” from his accusations.
