- The suspicious death of Alberto Nisman, investigator of the attack on the headquarters of the AMIA in 1994.
- A prosecutor investigating a terrorist bombing accuses the Argentinian president of colluding with Iran. Four days later he is found dead in his bathroom with a single shot to the head. Alberto Nisman died in Buenos Aires, but the shock waves of this mysterious murder, or suicide, spread across the globe to Israel, Iran and the United States.
The bombing of the AMIA, a Jewish civic center, in 1994 was the biggest terrorist attack in the West before 9/11, with 85 dead and hundreds wounded. It was also the worst anti-Semitic attack outside Isreal since the second world war. And before Nisman's death, it had already become one of the longest-running, unsolved cases in the Americas. Foreign intelligence agencies, the CIA, the FBI and Mossad have all had a hand in trying to find the culprits. Nisman had become famous for accusing the President of Iran, and other high-ranking officials. But for years, his investigations had shown little progress.
An ambitious young prosecutor, from a Jewish family, who won praise for his court appearances in the early years of the case, Nisman became a star in international judicial circles, at the head of a high-profile special investigation unit, with wide powers, and geopolitical impact over accusations of terrorism against Iran. At the same time, he relied heavily on the infamous Argentinian secret services for his investigations, and inside Argentina aroused suspicions for not investigating more at home.
Just four days before Nisman was found dead, he had appeared on prime time TV to accuse Kirchner of conspiring to do a secret deal with the Iranians, to drop the AMIA case against them. With the prosecutor dead, president Cristina Kirchner was accused of having him murdered. Thousands took to the streets to protest. In turn, Kirchner accused the most infamous, and feared person in Argentina, a veteran spy with close ties to the CIA and Mossad, Jaime Stiuso, of conspiring against her.
Had Nisman been murdered? Or had he committed suicide?
When an experienced prosecutor from a local courthouse, Viviana Fein, takes on the case no one wants, the country is split into those who believe one thing and those who believe another. The media - heavily politicised - is in permanent frenzy. Over the next three years, Cristina Kirchner loses power, and new investigations take the case full circle. With Argentina in turmoil, the focus eventually turns back to the unsolved case of the murder of 85 Jews in the AMIA bombing of 1994. This is a story of ambition, corruption and dirty tricks which unfolds, with rival narratives of good and evil, of suicide or murder, and of truth itself, around a body found in a bathroom, with enormous international resonance.
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By what name was Nisman. The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy (2019) officially released in Canada in English?
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