Investigator Says Argentine Prosecutor Who'd Probed Terrorist Plot Murdered

Nisman's body was discovered on the bathroom floor of his apartment in Buenos Aires. At the time, Nisman had been leading Argentina's inquiry into the deadly 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center, in which 85 people were killed and 300 were wounded. He accused Iran of having ordered the attack, via the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

Nisman was found with a bullet in his head and a pistol lying nearby. The death was classified a suicide, but the prosecutor's family and friends opposed the judgment, insisting that the circumstances of the case, as well as the personality of the deceased, indicated it was a homicide.

"Nisman was in charge of the investigation of the worst terrorist attack suffered by our country," said Ricardo Saenz, the prosecutor before the Buenos Aires Criminal Appeals Court. "And he was found dead four days after making very serious accusations for the cover-up of that attack."

On Thursday, Saenz declared to judges at the criminal court that Nisman was murdered and recommended that the case be handed over to federal authorities. He claimed that the prosecutor received death threats, that he was struck multiple times before being shot, and that his body had been moved, among other evidence.

"The evidence up to this point supports the hypothesis that Alberto Nisman was the victim of the crime of homicide," Saenz wrote in a recommendation letter to the court.

This is the first time an official publicly affirmed that Nisman's death was a homicide. The move followed the inauguration of President Mauricio Macri, who vowed during his campaign to get to the bottom of Nisman's mysterious death.

Nisman died one day before a scheduled appearance in Congress where he was scheduled to deliver a report accusing Kirchner of shielding high-ranking Iranian officials from prosecution over the bombing. Kirchner called Nisman's allegations an attempt to destabilize her government.