Federal prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita formally requested that charges be brought against Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner for obstructing an investigation into the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, The Wall Street Journal reported (Google link) today.

The request is the first in a series of steps that could lead a judge to initiate a full investigation into the accusations, which another prosecutor made last month. Alberto Nisman, that prosecutor, spent a decade leading an investigation into the bombing. He was found dead at his apartment with a bullet wound to his head, on Jan. 18, a day before he was set to present his allegations in Congress.

“This conspiracy would have been orchestrated and set up by high-ranking government officials” who allegedly worked with others to obstruct the investigation into the 1994 terrorist attack, Gerardo Pollicita, the federal prosecutor, said in a court filing on Friday.

A previous prosecutor investigating the case, Alberto Nisman, was found dead of a gunshot wound to head a day before he was expected to present his case against Kirchner to a congressional committee. Documents found in Nisman’s apartment showed his intent to ask for the arrest of Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman.

In an analysis published by The Tower in the wake of Nisman’s death, Eamonn MacDonagh wrote:

The coming days will tell us whether we live in a democracy—flawed but a democracy nonetheless—or a mafia state where local and foreign intelligence services do their grim work with the connivance of the highest authorities in the land—and where Jewish citizens can be slaughtered with almost no one being called to account.

[Photo: Administración Nacional de la Seguridad Social / Flickr ]