Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has been asked to testify in court on the death of Alberto Nisman, the crusading prosecutor who had accused her of conspiring to cover up Iranian involvement in the country’s worst terror attack four days before he died.



A lawyer representing Diego Lagomarsino – the computer technician who gave Nisman the gun which killed him – said that the president may be able to shed light on the mysterious death, which has shocked Argentina.



Death of prosecutor leaves Argentina's Jewish community angry and distrustful Read more

Last week the president spoke at length about Lagomarsino in a televised

speech, suggesting he and Nisman had an “intimate” relationship and that he

may have been an agent for Argentina’s secret service, rogue elements of

which Fernández suspects murdered Nisman.



On Wednesday, Lagomarsino’s lawyer Maximiliano Rusconi, who denies his client was a spy, presented a writ at court asking for the testimony of Fernández and Oscar Parrilli, the head of the country’s main intelligence organisation “seeing as they could know important information for the investigation”.

Judge Fabiana Palmaghini, in charge of Nisman’s murder case, must now decide whether the president will be formally compelled to testify.

Rusconi’s request came a day after the lead investigator in the case admitted that Nisman had originally drafted an arrest warrant for Fernández, who he alleged had plotted to conceal Iranian involvement in the 1994 bomb attack on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were killed.

Government officials had denied early reports of the warrant, but on Wednesday, prosecutor Viviana Fein said that the document had been found in a rubbish bin at Nisman’s flat. Nisman did not include the warrant in his final 300-page report on his investigation which he presented last month, just days before he was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

The request for Fernández to testify came as fresh details emerged of a campaign of threats against Nisman and his family which started several years ago and continued up to his death.

On the day before the prosecutor was found with a gunshot wound to his

head, a copy of a magazine featuring a picture of Nisman – on to which a

bullet hole had been drawn with a magic marker on his forehead, was received

at the home of his former wife Sandra Arroyo Salgado, court sources revealed today.

Threatening emails had also been sent to Nisman, members of his staff, his former wife and two young daughters since 2012. The messages were sent using the Hushmail email encryption service, it was reported.

Separately, a judge investigating allegations of money laundering and tax evasion at a hotel chain owned by Fernández revealed that he had also received a death threat. The threat against Judge Claudio Bonadío was made last week, according to a court presentation made today.

Nisman’s investigation had appeared doomed to die along with the prosecutor after a string of judges had refused to take up his allegations, but on Wednesday, the chamber of appeals put Judge Daniel Rafecas in charge of Nisman’s case.

Rafecas, who along with two other judges had originally recused himself from the case, has good connections with Argentina’s Jewish community and is the author of a book on the Holocaust. He must now decide whether to dismiss Nisman’s charges or decide they warrant opening an investigation into the president.