MARRAKECH, Morocco - Interpol put an ex-Iranian intelligence chief, a former leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, three other Iranians and a Lebanese militant on its most-wanted list yesterday for a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people at a Jewish center in Argentina.
The international coordinating agency announced the move after delegates at its general assembly sided with Argentine prosecutors and turned back a lobbying blitz by Iranian envoys trying to avoid having their country linked to Argentina's worst terrorist attack.
The dispute was steeped in geopolitical drama at a time of high tension between Iran and the West over Tehran's suspect nuclear program and American claims that Iran is supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan - claims that the Islamic Republic denies.
While Iranian envoys accused Israel and the United States of trying to use Interpol to taint Iran's image, most delegates agreed the case was purely a police matter. The result was a vote of 76 to 14 to add the names, with 26 abstentions, delegates said after the closed-door session.
Interpol Secretary-General Ronald K. Noble said the decision "means that the basis for it is police and crime issues, and not any broader geopolitical issues."
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No one has been brought to justice for the bombing at the Jewish community center in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires.
A van packed with explosives exploded on July 18, 1994, leveling the seven-story building while killing 85 people and wounding 200.
The Iranians targeted are former intelligence chief Ali Fallahian; Mohsen Rabbani, former cultural attache at Iran's embassy in Buenos Aires; a former diplomat, Ahmad Reza Asghari; Mohsen Rezaei, former head of the Revolutionary Guards; and Ahmad Vahidi, a Revolutionary Guards general. Hezbollah militant Imad Moughnieh, one of the world's most sought terrorism suspects, also was named.
