Netflix Replays Docu-series About the Death of Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman
Almost five years after the death of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who led the investigation into Argentina's deadliest terrorist attack, Netflix once again featured the series, "Nisman: The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy" on January 1. It was first aired in 2017.
According to an article by NBC News, his death still perplexes and fascinates many in this South American country and the surrounding mystery launched a debate over whether he was murdered or if he took his own life.
On January 18, 2015, the prosecutor's lifeless body was found in the bathroom of his apartment with a gunshot to the head and a 22-caliber weapon at his side. It was the day before he was to appear before Congress to provide details about his shocking accusations against then-President Cristina Fernández, her Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, a lawmaker and four others of conspiring to lift Interpol's red alerts against a handful of prominent Iranians accused of involvement the 1994 bombing of Argentina's AMIA Jewish center which left 85 people dead.
Nisman accused Fernández's government of negotiated impunity for the suspects with Tehran in exchange for resuming trade relations. But Fernández, who is now Argentina's vice president, has denied covering up the perpetrators. She also said she played no role in Nisman's death and suggested he took his own life. Meanwhile, as police investigation concluded he was murdered.
The six-hour long docu-series by British director Justin Webster features dozens of unpublished images, interviews and testimonies from different individuals and authorities including that of researchers, spies, FBI and CIA agents. Current President Alberto Fernández - who is not related to Cristina Fernández but was her chief of staff during her first term in office - was also interviewed.
The series quickly became the most commented topic on social media in Argentina and the president himself spoke to the media to address his statements in the documentary.
In an interview with Webster in 2017 that appeared in the documentary, Alberto Fernández said, "To this day, I doubt he committed suicide,".
But on Thursday, the president seemed to revoke his statement. In an interview with a local radio station, he said, "from 2017, when the interview was recorded, until now no serious evidence has appeared saying Nisman was killed."
The president also said her likes to know what really happened to Nisman and the reason if he really did kill himself.
In an interview with The Associated Press Thursday in Barcelona, Webster said he wasn't surprised why the president changed his opinion over the years. As people get to know more about a case, "it is completely natural for people to change their minds."
"When I interviewed him, he had no idea that he was going to be president." Webster said. "He was, as in the documentary, quite critical of Cristina (Fernández de) Kirchner. When I say critical... I don't mean he was against her and he was able to say what was good about her and what was bad about her for instance."
The spy being referred in the documentary's title is Antonio Stiuso, the former Argentine counterintelligence chief signaled by the vice president as the man behind the prosecutor's accusations as well as his killer as a revenge for having displaced him from office.
Webster described both Stiuso and Cristina Fernández as "Shakespearean characters," adding that Stiuso is an "absolutely fascinating" man who was responsible for investigating the AMIA attack. The director said that Stiuso provided evidence that alleged Iran was the intellectual author of the attack and the Islamic group Hezbollah the executor due to his close ties with the U.S. and Israeli intelligence service. Iran has previously denied its involvement.
Initially, the Argentina's judicial system described Nisman's death as doubtful, but in 2017, when the probe moved to the federal system, investigators declared it was a homicide linked to the investigation against Fernández's government.
Judge Héctor Timerman continued the investigation of Nisman and formally accused Cristina Fernández and other former officials of conniving to cover up Iranian involvement in the attack. The case is still pending due to the judge's death in 2018.
Webster warns, the prosecutor's death occurred in a country strongly divided between the allies and enemies of Cristina Fernández.
"And I think to the attentive viewer who watches all six episodes, then it does bring quite a lot of clarity to the big questions around the Nisman case, around AMIA and around the memorandum case," he said.
"That's what makes it for me a particularly attractive story, that it's a psychological story about a single man and psychological stories, if you like, about two other sort of Shakespearean characters, if you like... But it's also got this international resonance that is, I think, very it's quite a revelation about how things work," Webster said.
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