Government officials called it a suicide, but theories of something more sinister arose immediately.
Protesters took to the streets Monday night near the presidential palace — the Casa Rosada — waving Argentine flags and holding signs proclaiming, “Yo soy Nisman,” or “I am Nisman.”
In a report Nisman filed last week, he alleged that Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kircher and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, among others, covered up Iran’s involvement in the bombing of a Jewish community center more than 20 years ago that left 85 people dead.
The Fernandez government pushed the suicide theory, pointing to the evidence: Nisman was found dead from a gunshot wound to his temple in his apartment bathroom, a .22-caliber gun and a shell casing near his body.
But a test for gunpowder residue on Nisman’s hands came back negative, said Viviana Fein, the federal prosecutor leading the investigation into his death.
Fein said the result does not rule out the possibility that Nisman shot himself — it only shows that no gunpowder residue was found, as would be expected if he pulled the trigger.
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Nisman’s role was to investigate the bombing, in which eight Iranians had been charged, Bullrich told CNN en Español.
In the course of that investigation, Nisman came upon evidence that led to his claims of a cover-up, the lawmaker said.
After Nisman filed his complaint with the new allegations last week, it was Bullrich who invited him to speak before Congress. He was found dead just hours before he was supposed to testify.
“In the days before his death on Sunday, the prosecutor was very active, very focused on the presentation he was going to give before Congress, in the evidence he was going to present and his mind made up about going forward with it,” Bullrich said. “It’s hard to believe that he would have taken his own life.”
CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin and CNN en Español’s Carlos Montero contributed to this report.
