Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner was accused of covering up Iran's alleged part in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center. File Photo by UPI/Stefano Spaziani. | License Photo

BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Just a week after Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found shot dead in his Buenos Aires apartment, the reporter who first broke this story has fled the South American country, saying he feared for his life.

Damian Pachter is a journalist for the Buenos Aires Herald; he was the first to report Nisman's mysterious death. Nisman was killed just hours before he was due to testify before Congress.


"I am leaving because my life is in danger," Pachter told the Argentina online news outfit Infobae.com. "My phones have been extensively tapped."

Patcher's source and subject matter, Nisman, had recently filed a criminal complaint against Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, as well as the country's foreign minister, Hector Timerman. The complaint accused the two leaders, along with a number of other senior political figures, of conspiring to cover up Iran's role in the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

The judge in the pending case released the details of Nisman's complaint earlier this week, shedding further light on a the potential motives of the prosecutor's killer.

Pachter said he would return to Argentina when his sources assured him that the environment was safe -- once political tensions have subsided.

In a recent column for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Patcher (who is Jewish) described his escape, recalling being followed and having his phone tapped.

"Argentina has become a dark place led by a corrupt political system," he wrote. "I still haven't figured out everything that has happened to me over the past 48 hours. I never imagined my return to Israel would be like this."