A nervous Iranian leadership
Between May 1945 and the end of 1948, the most significant international agreements were reached, originating in the General Assembly and the Security Council of the now-devalued United Nations (UN) . Its resolution 95 (1946) is exemplary, declaring the principles employed in the Nuremberg trials and recognized by the statute of that tribunal, in a general codification of crimes against the peace and security of humanity.
Within the context of the Cold War, in 1950, Iran was the second Muslim-majority nation to recognize Israel as a sovereign state, until the diplomatic rupture that arose from the Islamic revolution of the ayatollah dynasty in 1979, which led to the exile of Shah Reza Pahlavi and more than two million Iranians who did not accept the impositions of the Islamic legal system known as Sharia and the subjection of women to the loss of fundamental rights.
In 1982, under the presidency of Ali Khamenei , the current supreme religious-political leader of Iran, his ambassador to the UN argued that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was “a secular interpretation of the Judeo-Christian tradition” that conflicted with Sharia law. In this context, terrorist attacks of a jihadist nature in Argentina (Israeli Embassy in 1992 and AMIA in 1994) and Panama (Alas Chiricana Flight 901 in 1994), the Iranian government leadership was accused of supporting and financing the Hezbollah party and paramilitary group. Despite Interpol red alerts for the arrest and/or presentation of the alleged perpetrators before the Argentine justice system, more than thirty years passed without any cooperation in criminal matters. Several leaders who have been linked to the local attack on the AMIA – Ali Akbar Velayati , Mohsen Rezai and Mohsen Rabbani – publicly ignored national jurisdiction.
The equation changed substantially in March 2025. After 27 different projects were discussed in Congress, the trial in absentia law . This is how the first complainants appeared.
He arrest warrant for leader Ali Khamenei , now issued by the Argentine courts in light of the new law, unnerved Iranian government officials. In a notable diplomatic blunder, the Director General for American Affairs at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Isa Kameli , summoned the Argentine chargé d'affaires to deliver a formal letter of protest and a strong condemnation of the arrest warrant for their supreme religious leader. Kameli urged the Argentine authorities to "correct this mistaken course" and warned of the legal and political consequences of their actions. This latest letter, coupled with Interpol alerts and reports conducted by Iranian authorities for more than thirty years, denotes their express awareness of the existence of the case against the Iranian officials involved. The reluctance to submit to Argentine jurisdiction meets the procedural requirements for moving forward with the trial in absentia, as enshrined in the trial in absentia law.
The progress in the case prompted the current DAIA directors to hold a recognition ceremony for those who actively worked toward the enactment of the new law, which places the Federal Justice system in an exceptional legal position that was unthinkable until recently. Not only does it unblock the holding of the oral and public trial, from which new names of perpetrators or collaborators linked to the attacks may emerge, but in the event of a conviction, it also enables Argentina, or any other state that has had compatriots as victims, to resort to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to seek reparations and sanctions from complicit countries.
It is precisely a matter of respecting both the human rights of the victims and the legal principles that emerged at the United Nations. The Islamic Republic of Iran must understand that demanding respect for human rights is not a questionable interference, but an act of justice supported by the civilized world.
lanacion
