A spokesperson for the European External Action Service (EEAS) has confirmed that Interpol’s warrant against Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, a former defense minister of the Iranian regime, is still valid. He is being sought for his role in the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina in 1994 which claimed 85 victims.
Vahidi was serving as the commander of a special unit of the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards known as the Quds Force when the attack occurred. He is one of five Iranians sought in the bombing.
The recent nuclear agreement between the major world powers and the regime in Iran, if implemented, will curb the regime’s nuclear program in return for a lifting of economic sanctions.
The eventual lifting of the EU sanctions against the regime in Iran also includes the lifting of sanctions against members of the Iranian regime, such as Ahmad Vahidi. The EU sanctions were imposed in 2008 in the context of the Iran Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMD) sanctions regime.
According to media reports, the EU is committed, under the terms of the agreement with the regime in Iran, to remove Vahidi from its sanction list.
“However, this has no implication whatsoever on the Interpol warrant against Mr. Ahmad Vahidi who continues to remain in force,” a spokesperson of EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the EEAS told The Brussels Times. “The EU continues to support Argentina in its quest to fully clarify the attack of 1994 and to bring those responsible for the attack to justice.”
On January 18th 2015, Alberto Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor in charge of the investigation of the bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires, was found dead in suspicious circumstances in his apartment.
According to the investigations by Prosecutor Nisman, the plan to blow up the Jewish center was discussed in a meeting of the Iranian regime’s Supreme National Security Council on 14 August 1993 by Ali Khamenei (the supreme leader), Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (then President), Ali Akbar Velayati (then Foreign Minister), and Ali Fallahian (then Minister of Intelligence). Once the decision for the bombing was finalized, Khamenei tasked the intelligence ministry and the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force (IRGC-QF) to carry out the bombing. At that time, Ahmad Vahidi was the Commander of the Quds Force and Mohsen Rezaii was the Commander of the IRGC. Nisman’s investigation reveals that mullah Mohsen Rabbani, the regime’s key terrorist mastermind in Latin America who was working there under the cover of the regime’s cultural attaché at the mullahs’ embassy in Buenos Aires, along with another agent from the ministry of intelligence called Ahmad Reza Asghari working under the cover of the embassy’s Third Secretary, and Imad Muqnieh, the military commander of Hezbollah, were involved in implementing this plan.
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