Argentine president seeks to dissolve intelligence body
Argentina’s president has described the country’s intelligence agency as a “national debt” and has announced plans to disband it.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner made the remarks in a Monday TV address, saying she would prepare a draft legislation to set up an alternative body.
"I have prepared a bill to reform the intelligence service," said Fernandez, insisting that she wanted the idea discussed at an urgent session of the nation’s Congress.
She further stated that her plan “is to dissolve the Intelligence Secretariat and create a Federal Intelligence Agency" and added that a new leadership for the intelligence agency should be picked by a president and confirmed by the South American country’s Senate.
Fernandez further argued that the intelligence services maintained the same structure they had during the US-backed military government that ended in 1983.
"Combating impunity has been a priority of my government," she emphasized.
She made the decision following the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman hours before he was reportedly due to testify against senior government authorities.
Nisman had been probing the bombing of a Jewish center in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires in 1994 which killed 85 people.
He was found dead on January 18 in his apartment in Buenos Aires.
Investigators initially said they believed he had committed suicide, but later clarified that homicide or "induced suicide” could not be ruled out.
President Fernandez has emphasized that she does not believe Nisman's death was a suicide.
MFB/NT/AS
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