Former Iran Leader Wanted in Argentina

Firefighters and rescue workers search through the rubble of the Buenos Aires Jewish Community center in this July 18, 1994, file photo after a car bomb rocked the building, killing 85 people. Argentine prosecutors asked a federal judge on Wednesday Oct. 25, 2006 to order the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed scores of people. (AP Photo/Alejandro Pagni, File) (Alejandro Pagni - AP)

The investigation unit was created after Argentina's federal courts in 2004 which halted a botched investigation into the case by then-judge Juan Jose Galeano. Galeano was removed from the case and later stripped of his judgeship.

Nisman announced in November 2005 that investigators believed a suspected 21-year-old Lebanese Hezbollah militant had been identified as the suicide bomber.

The attack on the seven-story Jewish center, a symbol of Argentina's more than 200,000-strong Jewish population, was the second of two attacks targeting Jews in Argentina during the 1990s.

A March 1992 blast destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people in a case that has also been blamed on Hezbollah.

Some speculated the bombing was inspired by Argentina's support for the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. Others said Argentina's Jewish community, one of the largest in Latin America, represented an obvious target for Israel's opponents.

Although Jewish community leaders and others have suspected the involvement of Middle East terrorists, a lack of progress in tracking down the masterminds has made families of the victims increasingly bitter.

In 2004, about a dozen former police officers and an accused trafficker in stolen vehicles were acquitted of charges that they had formed a "local connection" in the bombing.

Jewish center leaders said Wednesday they had no immediate statement.