MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) – Iran lobbied strongly Tuesday to stop Interpol from putting five Iranians and a Lebanese man on its most wanted list.
Iranian envoys to Interpol’s annual general assembly were pulling out the stops to convince colleagues. Iran wants the meeting to vote down a recommendation by Interpol’s executive panel to issue wanted "red notices" for the six suspects over a 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina. The bombing killed 85 people.
An assembly vote was expected Wednesday.
Iranian delegates accused allegedly corrupt Argentinian judges of pushing the case and warned that approval of the notices would put the international police agency, based in Lyon, France, on a path to becoming a political tool.
Constantin Machabeli, a Russian who sits on Interpol’s executive committee, said the vote "is not a political question, it is purely a police matter."
While the red notice does not force countries to arrest or extradite suspects, people with red-notice status appear on Interpol’s equivalent of a most-wanted list.
As the four-day meeting got under way Monday in Marrakech, Morocco, Iran backed off an earlier request to stop Interpol from voting on the case brought by Argentina ââ¬â while insisting the five Iranians are innocent.
Whatever the outcome, Iran would be unlikely to hand over any suspect to Argentina, which has not brought anyone to justice over the attack. The blast caused by an explosives-laden van leveled the seven-story building and shook Argentina’s 200,000-strong Jewish community.
Argentine prosecutors allege Iranian officials orchestrated the bombing, and entrusted the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah to carry it out.
Among those wanted by Argentina are former Iranian intelligence chief Ali Fallahian, former Revolutionary Guard chief Mohsen Rezaei and Hezbollah militant Imad Moughnieh, one of the world’s most sought-after terror suspects.
