Argentina’s parliament has approved a bill to compensate the victims of the 1994 bombing at the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
The bill passed in the parliament’s lower chamber on Wednesday after being approved in the Argentine senate earlier this month.
According to the bill, the families of the 85 people who were killed and those who suffered serious injuries will receive one-time compensation similar to the reparations paid to victims of both Argentina’s military dictatorship and the 1992 bombing of the country’s Israeli embassy, said Remo Carolotto, the president of Argentina’s Human Rights Commission, according to AFP.
The bill’s passage comes at a time of heightened controversy surrounding the 1994 attack on the Jewish center, which killed 85 people and injured 300. Many observers believe the Argentine government has obstructed investigations into the alleged role of Iran in the attack.
On the same day as the passage of the compensation bill, Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, who is Jewish, canceled his membership at AMIA, citing the Jewish center’s “obstructionist actions” regarding the joint Iran-Argentina deal to probe the bombing.
Alberto Nisman, the Jewish prosecutor who was investigating the 1994 attack, was found dead in his apartment in January just hours before he planned to testify that Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has attempted to cover up Iran’s involvement in the bombing, an allegation Kirchner has denied.
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