The former chief of operations of the SIDE, Horacio Antonio Stiusoasked to testify again in the case in which the death of Alberto Nisman. From their surroundings they affirm that it has nothing to do with the core of the cause and the whole impression is that it is going to refer to the statement of a former spy who, in April this year, said that the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) spied on Viviana Fein, the prosecutor who had the case of Nisman’s death as soon as the body appeared. It was the time of the government of Cristina Kirchner: early 2015. That former agent -whose name is being withheld- ended up working with Patricia Bullrich during the government of Mauricio Macri and said he was in a car on the corner of the Fein prosecutor’s office seeing who was going in and who was going out.
The issue is related to Stiuso because, it seems, at that time the AFI was looking for Jaime – as they called the former SIDE official – because he gave false addresses and the spy center had opened several files against him. When Stiuso testified about Nisman’s death, he only maintained that “if the Iranians set their minds to something, they achieve it,” but he could not provide any evidence, not even a hypothesis or an idea about how a supposed commando entered the building, the apartment and to the bathroom in which Nisman died. Now it is very possible that he will return to the spy war and not so much about the death of the prosecutor.
Stiuso’s writing
The text that was made known this Wednesday has only ten lines and states that “after having given a statement before you in March 2019, I have become aware through journalistic reports of various issues that were not addressed at that time and that I consider that the Prosecutor’s Office must know, to what end I offer to make a new witness statement”. The sheet has the signature of Stiuso himself and his lawyer Santiago Blanco Bermúdez, using the lawyer’s study as his address.
Although the judge of the two cases – the death of the prosecutor and the alleged follow-up of Fein – is Julian Ercolinihe referred the two investigations to the prosecutor Eduardo Taiano. For now, no date or place has been set for Stiuso’s new witness statement.
Kicked out of the IPA
The former head of Operations was fired from the AFI in December 2014, after the judicial operations carried out from the spy center on Comodoro Py against the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran. When CFK ordered the intervention, it put in charge of the AFI a oscar parrilli y John Martin Menawho kicked out Stiuso.
At that time, several irregularities were discovered. Supposed imports of intelligence material in which technological products were mixed and then sold. Also the disappearance of documents on the cause AMIA and other files.
Those were the reasons why he was summoned to respond to internal summaries. However, it seems that he was not located at the addresses that appeared in the AFI. The hypothesis is that the car on the corner of the Fein prosecutor’s office was intended to locate Stiuso, who at that time was going to testify before the magistrate. The former major, former AFI agent and collaborator of Patricia Bullrich who testified last April raised the issue as espionage to Fein, with the aim of continuing to use the Nisman case against Kirchnerism.
When Stiuso declared
So far, the almighty former SIDE chief has testified three times about Nisman’s death.
- The first, before the prosecutor Fein, said nothing. Fein, already retired, was an impeccable prosecutor, who was demonized by the media aligned with macrismo because she refused to describe Nisman’s death as a homicide. “For now I have no proof that someone has intervened,” the prosecutor repeated. Facing Fein, Stiuso replied that he “didn’t know” almost everything he was asked. She obviously lied when he claimed that he had not listened to the cell phone during the Friday and Saturday before the prosecutor’s death. It happens that Nisman called him several times and Stiuso did not answer, despite the fact that they were close collaborators.
- In March 2016, a year and two months after Nisman’s death, Stiuso testified before the judge Fabiana Palmaghini. It lasted for 14 hours. He essentially said that “Nisman was killed for the work he had been doing”, but did not provide any specific element. Despite this, the judge declared herself incompetent and that was the decisive step for the file to land on Comodoro Py. A few months later she told the journalist Néstor Espósito: “I rushed.” In other words, she admitted that Stiuso did not say anything significant or add any evidence. In that statement she stated that “when the Iranians decide something, they do it”.
- He finally testified before the Taiano prosecutor in 2019 and did not provide anything about Nisman’s death either. He dedicated his testimony to denouncing Cristina Kirchner because, supposedly, they were spying on him and “They unleashed a smear campaign against me”.
Almost eight years after the death of the prosecutor – clearly a suicide – it is difficult for Stiuso to make any contribution that supports the hypothesis of homicide. In eight years, the prosecution could not find a single piece of evidence about someone entering an apartment that was locked from the inside and a bathroom where the door was locked by the prosecutor’s own body.
spy battle
Therefore, it is most likely that Stiuso is referring to the testimony, this year, of the former major, whose nickname in the AFI is significant: they called him “Disaster”. The individual was always aligned with the CIA American -like Stiuso- and posed not only with Bullrich, while on vacation, but with an American flag. He ended up working with the former minister during her management in Security.
Given the lack of results in the investigation into Nisman’s death, the prosecutor in charge, Taiano, did what in judicial jargon they call “a fishing excursion”. She summoned a hundred former AFI agents to see if anyone had anything to say. She didn’t get anything except what the ex-major said. As a result of that statement, another file was opened on the alleged espionage on Fein.
Everything indicates that Stiuso will return to the fray with the optics that he already displayed: fury against CFK, Parrilli, Mena, who -belatedly- took him out of his powerful location in the former SIDE. As he always worked associated with the CIA and the Mossad, it cannot be ruled out that he speaks of the prosecutor’s death, but it seems unlikely. Almost certainly, he will testify about the spy war.