The dark times of the military dictatorship could return to Argentina as President Mauricio Macri is increasingly broadening the power of the intelligence agency in that country, Reuters reported Wednesday. Spies from the Secretariat of Intelligence are recovering their posts and taking over of the newly-formed Argentine Federal Intelligence Agency. The report follows claims that agents from the defunct Secretariat of Intelligence are recovering their posts and taking over the Federal Intelligence Agency. Former President Cristina Fernandez decided to dissolve the SI after public investigator Alberto Nisman was found dead in his home in 2015, a mysterious case that the government said was a murder perpetrated by rogue agents from the SI. Nisman was found dead in his apartment in Buenos Aires the same day he was scheduled to attend a congressional hearing on the 1994 Mutual Israeli Argentine Association bombing case, which left 85 people dead. Fernandez, whose husband and late President Nestor Kirchner ordered the investigation into the AMIA bombing, was quick to cast doubt on the apparent suicide of the attorney. Right-wing President Macri issued a decree in May lifting the controls that Fernandez had placed on the agency's funding, allowing spies to return to their posts as wiretappers that have been run by the judiciary since last year, Reuters reported. Cables revealed by Wikileaks suggest that Nisman was being advised by U.S. and Israeli intelligence services, and Argentine officials investigating his death say the attorney’s 300-page report indicate he was being manipulated and fed false information. Source URL |
