President Cristina Fernandez said Monday her government had nothing to gain from shielding Iranian officials suspected in Argentina’s largest terrorist attack, using her first public comments since the mysterious death of a prosecutor to reject his accusations against her and call for an overhaul of the intelligence services.
Without saying who might have killed Alberto Nisman, Fernandez called on Congress to dissolve Argentina’s spy agencies. In recent letters, she had suggested that rogue intelligence agents may have orchestrated the death of the prosecutor hours before he was to give potentially explosive testimony on the alleged cover up to lawmakers.
But she provided no new details of the alleged plot during Monday’s nationally televised speech, and Fernandez herself oversees the intelligence agencies in question.
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Employing the fiery rhetoric she is known for, at the end of her speech on Monday she looked directly into the camera and said in a stern tone that she had a message for her countrymen.
“I will not be extorted, I am not afraid” of being cited by judges or denounced by investigators, she said. “They will not make me move even a centimeter from what I have always thought.”
