Buenos Aires, April 17 (teleSUR-RHC)-- A bank account opened by late attorney Alberto Nisman in the United States is under investigation by Argentinian authorities, Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral confirmed on Thursday during a radio interview.
The Argentine justice requested information from the United States Department of Justice to learn more about the account, opened at Merrill Lynch, and its latest transactions. The existence of the account became known during investigations into Nisman's mysterious death, when his aide Diego Lagomarsino — who is still being investigated — revealed that Nisman's sister, mother and Lagomarsino himself shared an account in the United States.
Through this account, Lagomarsino would have to deposit a percentage of his salary to Nisman every month and the funds would then be only transferable with Nisman's sister's and mother's approval.
“It is not clear in which way the account was open and we want to determine which movements it had and if there were other accounts, security boxes or any other banking scheme abroad,” explained the judge.
Judge Canicoba says the case is independent from the undergoing investigation on the late attorney's death. He added authorities are using the figure of money laundering to conduct the investigation. Judicial sources told Argentine media outlets that investigators are trying to establish where the money came from, as it is suspected that some of the funds could have come from the government's budget destined to the AMIA bombing case investigation unit, formerly headed by Nisman.
Nisman had been claiming that he had proof that President Cristina Kirchner and the Foreign Minister Hector Timerman were in the process of orchestrating a cover-up of the AMIA bombing. He had presented a lengthy 289-page report to a federal judge, who was not able to immediately reveal its content as it mentioned Argentine intelligence agents by name.
Opposition lawmakers summoned Nisman to Congress to present his findings, but the meeting, scheduled for the 19 January, was never held, as Nisman died few hours before. A judge threw out the accusations against Fernandez earlier this month.
