12 Detained in Argentina in Connection With Jewish Cultural Center’s Bombing

A dozen people, including several in the military, were detained Friday in a series of police raids ordered by a judge investigating last year’s car bombing of a Jewish cultural center.

Judge Juan Jose Galeano, who authorized raids at the Campo de Mayo army base outside Buenos Aires, said three detainees were in active military service, four were retired from the military and five were civilians.

Weapons and explosives were found in some of the soldiers’ homes. “It is the first time in this investigation that we’ve found explosives,” Galeano said.

But he added that the explosives found in the early morning raids were not the same kind as the one used to blow up the Jewish center.

Galeano did not disclose any names or ranks. Earlier, President Carlos Menem told reporters that some of those detained were army sergeants.

The July 18, 1994, car bombing of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Assn. in downtown Buenos Aires killed 95 people and injured more than 200 others.

It leveled the main cultural center of Argentina’s 250,000-member Jewish community, the largest in Latin America, in one of the worst attacks on Jews outside Israel since World War II.

So far only one person faces charges in connection with the attack. Carlos Telleldin, an Argentine citizen, has been accused of selling a pickup truck that police say was stacked with explosives and used in the attack.

Argentine Jewish groups, the United States and Israel have accused Iranian-backed militants for the car bombing, but no firm links have been established.