According to one of his colleagues, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who died in unexplained circumstances, borrowed a gun because he did not trust the police protecting him.
Diego Lagomarsino lent Alberto Nisman a gun the day before he was found shot dead.
Alberto Nisman was about to testify about alleged attempts to cover up Iranian involvement in a bombing in 1994.
Prosecutors have yet to establish if he committed suicide or was killed. He will be buried on January 29.
Alberto Nisman had been due to appear in Congress to publicly accuse President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of being behind an attempt to hide the alleged involvement of Iranian suspects in the Jewish centre bombing, which killed 85 people.
He was found dead in his apartment on January 18.
On January 28, Alberto Nisman was mourned at a private wake. He will be buried on January 29 at a Jewish cemetery in La Tablada, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
Photo AP
Diego Lagomarsino, a computer specialist and long-time acquaintance of Alberto Nisman, lent him the gun that killed him.
He told a news conference that Alberto Nisman had told him he “feared for the safety of his daughters”.
“I told him, <<Look this (gun) is old, it’s an old weapon… I don’t know if you will be able to protect yourself with it>>.
“He said to me, <<Don’t worry, it’s to have in the glove box just in case a crazy person with a stick comes up and says I am a traitor>>.”
Diego Lagomarsino, the last person to see Alberto Nisman alive, said he showed him how to load and unload the gun, but the prosecutor had assured him he would not use it.
But he added that Alberto Nisman had told him: “I don’t even trust my security detail.”
Diego Lagomarsino has been charged with giving a firearm to someone who was not the registered owner – the only person to be charged in the case so far.
Alberto Nisman’s security chief has been suspended and is under investigation along with two other members of his guard.
Ruben Benitez had co-ordinated a security team of 10 officers to protect Alberto Nisman.
Police say the team broke with protocol by remaining out of contact with Alberto Nisman for several hours on the day of his death and failing to report to their superiors.
In a national address on January 26 and in two letters, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner accused former intelligence agents of manipulating Alberto Nisman to bring charges against her.
She suggested he was killed to increase the damage to her.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced plans to disband Argentina’s intelligence services and replace them with a new agency.
Investigators have said they believe Alberto Nisman committed suicide, but have classified his death as suspicious because they could not rule out murder or an “induced suicide”.
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Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner says she is convinced the death of federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman was not suicide.
Alberto Nisman, 51, was found shot dead in his apartment on January 18.
The prosecutor probing Alberto Nisman’s death said it appeared to be suicide.
In a letter published on January 22, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner cast doubt on that theory.
Alberto Nisman had been investigating the 1994 deadly bombing of a Jewish centre.
Eighty-five people died in the bombing in Buenos Aires. It was Argentina’s worst terrorist attack.
Days prior to his death, Alberto Nisman had accused Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman of involvement in a plot to cover up Iran’s alleged role in the 1994 bombing on the seven-storey AMIA community centre.
He died just hours before he was due to give details of his allegations to a congressional committee.
Alberto Nisman based his allegations on intercepted conversations which seem to suggest Argentine intelligence officers tried to whitewash the Iranian suspects in the 1994 bombing.
In a 300-page report, Alberto Nisman alleged that after years of tension caused by the 1994 bombing, the government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was keen to improve ties with Iran in order to trade Argentine grain for badly needed oil.
Government spokesman Anibal Fernandez dismissed the allegations on January 21 as “absolutely feeble”.
In a letter published on her Twitter account, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said Alberto Nisman had been provided with “false information” and that the spies he quoted were not really spies at all but had misled him deliberately.
She also referred to his death as “the suicide (I’m convinced) was no suicide”.
Investigating prosecutor Viviane Fein had said on January 19 that there had been “no intervention” from others in Alberto Nisman’s death.
The prosecutor said the bullet found lodged in his head had been fired at close range from the gun which had been found lying next to Alberto Nisman’s body.
Viviane Fein added that the apartment’s door had been locked from the inside and that the key was in the lock.
She said there was no evidence of any outside “intervention”, although she did not rule out the possibility that Alberto Nisman had been “induced” to kill himself.
Relatives and friends of Alberto Nisman, who had spoken to him in the days prior to his death, said he appeared confident and in good spirits, although he did mention receiving threats.
Media speculation about whether Alberto Nisman’s death was a suicide has been mounting as new statements and evidence emerge.
On January, it was revealed that a test failed to detect any gunshot residue on Alberto Nisman’s hands.
While Viviane Fein said that the negative result could be due to the small caliber of the gun, it reignited suspicion that Alberto Nisman did not pull the trigger.
Remarks made by the locksmith who was called to gain access to Alberto Nisman’s flat further fuelled speculation.
The man, who only gave his name as Walter, described how it had taken him only two minutes to get in.
He said that the service door “was closed but not locked” and that it had been easy to “simply push the key” which was on the inside with the help of a wire.
“If someone entered or not, I don’t know,” he added.
Apart from the locked main door and the service door, investigators have found a third way into the apartment.
They said a narrow corridor housing air conditioning equipment linked Alberto Nisman’s apartment to that of a neighbor.
Recent footprints and fingerprints found inside the corridor are currently being tested.
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Argentine federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who accused President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner last week of a cover-up has been found dead at his home in the capital, Buenos Aires.
Alberto Nisman was investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people died.
On January 14, he accused Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of involvement in a plot to cover up Iran’s alleged role in the bombing.
The president’s spokesman dismissed the allegations as “ridiculous”.
Alberto Nisman, 51, was found dead by his mother in the bathroom of his home.
The Security Ministry released a statement saying that Alberto Nisman’s bodyguards had raised the alarm after he failed to answer their phone calls on January 18.
Concerned about his welfare, they fetched Alberto Nisman’s mother and tried to enter his apartment, the statement said.
They found the door locked from the inside with a key still stuck inside.
After a locksmith gained access, they found Alberto Nisman’s body in the bathroom.
According to the statement, a gun and a cartridge shell were found next to his body.
Alberto Nisman was due to give evidence at a congressional committee hearing on January 19 to outline his accusations against President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and other officials.
He had published a 300-page report on January 14 alleging that the president and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman had opened a secret back channel to Iranians suspected of involvement in the bombing of the community centre.
Alberto Nisman alleged that the scheme was intended to clear the Iranian suspects in order to facilitate a trade deal between Iran and Argentina.
He said that he had issued a request that a judge question the president and the foreign minister “for being authors and accomplices of an aggravated cover-up and obstruction of justice regarding the Iranians accused of the AMIA [Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association] terrorist attack”.
The car bombing of the seven-storey building was the worst terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
In 2007, Argentine prosecutors accused Iran of planning and financing the attack, and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah of carrying it out.
Iran dismissed the allegations as “baseless”.
So far, no-one has been convicted in connection with the AMIA attack.
Last July, at events marking the 20th anniversary of the bombing, Pope Francis demanded justice for the victims.
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