Alberto Nisman

In September 23rd, 2019 a Netflix produced documentary miniseries premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. This docuseries, titled Nisman: The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy was directed by British filmmaker Justin Webster and it became available at the streaming service on January 1st, 2020.

The death of Nisman is under investigation by Federal Judge Emma Palmaghini and Special Prosecutor Viviana Fein. It is known that the death was a murder, as confirmed on 1 June 2018. Several items from the crime scene have been considered so far, attempting to clarify the circumstances of the event.

On December 21, 2018, Judge Arroyo Salgado resigned to be part of the Complaint in Nisman's death trial.

On December 2018, during the third hearing of the trial for the human rights violations committed during the recovery of the La Tablada barracks in 1989, a surprising revelation occurred when two soldiers who had participated in the events claimed under oath that Iván Ruiz and José Díaz were captured alive, tortured and then disappeared by the Army. But one of them went further: César Ariel Quiroga, at the time the driver of an ambulance inside the Tablada barracks, reported that he was forced to sign a statement with facts that he did not see and which cleared the name of the military in the dissapearance of Ruiz and Díaz. That false testimonial bears the signature of Alberto Nisman, then secretary of the Morón court. During the 2018 trial, Quiroga thanked the court for the "opportunity" to speak up and then explained that in 1990, when he was 23 years old, he signed a testimonial statement before Nisman that "was not" true to what he had declared and that an "auditor of the Army", present in the court of Gerardo Larrambebere had taken him aside before signing, and asked him to consent to the "official version so as not to damage the institution" (i.e. the Argentine Army). That statement was taken in August 1990, in the court that ran Larrambebere, with the secretariat of Nisman: "They gave me two sheets to sign, which they said it was a procedure I had to do in case someone claimed something", Quiroga explained, and he showed the copies that were delivered to him at that time, which are now part of the file and will be submitted to the expert's report, according to the president of Federal Court Nº4 of San Martín, Matías Alejandro Mancini. "I signed it because of my young age, because I had been in the institution for a short time, due to pressure and fear", Quiroga added.

Nisman's death was initially ruled a suicide by a group of forensic experts appointed by Argentina's Supreme Court in 2015. However, in 2018, Nisman's death was determined to have been a homicide by a forensic group of the Gendarmerie. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was accused of being the prime suspect in Nisman's homicide, and is currently being prosecuted on conspiracy to commit murder charges by a federal judge.

The accusation was also based on his stated belief that the administration had petitioned Interpol to lift Red Notices against numerous Iranian officials during said negotiations. The Secretary-General of Interpol at the time, Ronald Noble, noted on 15 January 2015 that no such requests had been made; “on each occasion that you and I spoke about the Interpol red notices issued in connection to the AMIA case, you stated that Interpol should keep the red notices effective,” Noble wrote in an email addressed to Timerman. On the same day of Nisman's death, a recent interview with Noble was published by the newspaper Página/12; when asked about Nisman's belief and affirmation of the lifting of the Red Notices, Noble declared: "Prosecutor Nisman's assertion is false."

Nisman was found dead at his home in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, on 18 January 2015 with a Bersa Thunder 22 handgun nearby just hours before he was due to explain his allegations to Congress, and six days after publishing the 288 page report. According to the autopsy, Nisman died the previous afternoon and had an entry bullet wound on the right temple with no exit wound. His body was found inside the bathroom and blocking the door, and there were no signs of forced entry or robbery in the apartment. Nonetheless, a locksmith who arrived at Nisman's apartment was quoted as stating that he found a hidden entrance to the apartment open upon his arrival.

Fein announced on 3 February 2015 that Nisman had drafted warrants for the arrest of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Héctor Timerman, Argentina's Foreign Minister, before his death. The 26 page document was found in the garbage in Nisman's apartment.

In June 2015 a video was released of the crime scene investigation showing police allegedly tampering with evidence by neglecting certain precautionary measures.

The incident was first ruled as a suicide by a group of forensic experts appointed by Argentina's Supreme Court in 2015 (during Fernández de Kirchner's government), and then as a homicide by a forensic group of Gendarmerie in 2018, under Macri's government. That same year Nisman’s assistant was accused as the prime suspect of Nisman's alleged homicide after providing the murder or suicide weapon and is currently being prosecuted on conspiracy-to-commit-murder charges by a federal judge. Fernandez de Kirchner is facing unrelated corruption charges

In early March 2015, a private investigation that was initiated by Nisman's family concluded that Nisman's death was not suicide but was an act of homicide. The report, which was performed by experts of Judge Arroyo Salgado, included photos of Nisman's body and was about 100 pages in length.

Public protests took place following his death, accusing the Argentine government of corruption. Suspicions were raised by the rapidity with which the incident was officially declared a suicide. President Kirchner reversed her initial statement and declared on 22 January 2015 that she believed that it was not a case of suicide.

Senior Secretariat of Intelligence officer Antonio "Jaime" Stiuso, who conducted many of the wiretaps ordered by Nisman, had been dismissed in a December 2014 agency shakeup and had persuaded Nisman to dismiss his 10-man security detail days before his death. Stiuso presented himself on 18 February for questioning by Special Prosecutor Fein after initially evading the subpoenas. Facing unrelated charges of smuggling, he reportedly fled the country for neighboring Uruguay a week later in a black pickup registered to one of the companies allegedly involved in the smuggling operation.

Nisman rejected the 2013 memorandum of understanding signed with Iran to investigate the case. Two years later, he accused President Cristina Kirchner, Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman and other politicians of covering up Iranian suspects in the case. The report was largely based on wire tap reports of close allies of Kirchner alleged to be "clearly acting on orders from her" and others, including Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attaché at Iran's embassy in Buenos Aires.

Nisman was found next to a Bersa gun, .22 caliber. It has been confirmed that it was the killing weapon, that there was a single shot, and that it was fired point blank to his head. Nisman had two registered guns, but this gun did not belong to him; it belonged to his assistant Diego Lagomarsino, who lent it to him. Of the other two guns, one was transferred in 2009, and the other has not been found. The paraffin test did not reveal any gunshot residue on Nisman's hands, suggesting that he may not have fired the gun himself. The results of such a test, however, may not be conclusive, as the gun involved is of small caliber and may leave no trace. His body did not have signs of physical attacks, and Fein commented that there were no items suggesting the presence of other people in the crime scene. Fein announced on 9 February, however, that DNA from a second person was found on a coffee cup in the kitchen sink.

Nisman asked in 2008 for the detention of the former President Carlos Menem and Judge Juan José Galeano, who first presided over the AMIA case until his removal in 2004. WikiLeaks revealed that US diplomats considered that Nisman may have done this so as to be in good standing with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. He was considered a possible candidate for General Prosecutor of the Nation, after the resignation of Esteban Righi during the Boudougate scandal in 2012.

Nisman was appointed Special Prosecutor in charge of the AMIA bombing investigation on 13 September 2004. The probe into the 1994 terrorist attack against the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) had been marked by judicial misconduct, and had reached an impasse. On October 25, 2006, Nisman formally accused the government of Iran of directing the AMIA bombing, and the Hezbollah militia of carrying it out. According to the prosecution, Argentina had been targeted by Iran after Buenos Aires' decision to suspend a nuclear technology transfer contract to Tehran. In November 2007, following the accusation, Interpol published the names of six individuals officially accused for their role in the terrorist attack. They were entered in the Interpol red notice list: Imad Fayez Moughnieh, Ali Fallahijan, Mohsen Rabbani, Ahmad Reza Asghari, Ahmad Vahidi and Mohsen Rezaee.

The 1989 attack on La Tablada barracks was an assault on the military barracks located in La Tablada, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, by 40 members of Movimiento Todos por la Patria (MTP), an Argentine leftist urban guerrilla group commanded by former ERP leader Enrique Gorriarán Merlo. 39 people were killed and 60 injured by the time the Argentine Army retook the barracks. The MTP carried out the assault under the alleged pretense of preventing a military coup supposedly planned for the end of January 1989 by the Carapintadas, a group of far-right military officers opposed to the investigations concerning Argentina's last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983) and its widespread Human Rights abuse, as well as the use of State terrorism against civilians.

In 1989, Gerardo Larrambebere (then federal judge of Morón), appointed Nisman as the secretary in charge of the investigation on the allegations of forced disappearance of Iván Ruiz and José Díaz, two of the guerrilla members who participated during the fight on La Tablada barracks. Nisman filed the case due to "lack of evidence". In 1997, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled that Ruíz y Díaz had been victims of crimes against humanity and that the Argentine State and its Juditial power had failed to comply with its duty to investigate and punish the people responsible. Twenty years later the case was reactivated and the then federal judge of Morón ordered the prosecution and capture of soldiers suspected of having committed the crimes.

Natalio Alberto Nisman (5 December 1963 – 18 January 2015) was an Argentine lawyer who worked as a federal prosecutor, noted for being the chief investigator of the 1994 car bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, the worst terrorist attack in Argentina's history. On 18 January 2015, Nisman was found dead at his home in Buenos Aires, one day before he was scheduled to report on his findings, with supposedly incriminating evidence against high-ranking officials of the then-current Argentinian government including former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.