238. On the other hand, the prosecutors listed a series of telephone communications that would have been
made between mosques located in the city of Foz do Iguaçu and an address in the city of Beirut that belonged
to a person identified as Ahmad Ali Berro. The Commission underscores on this point that the prosecutors
clarified that they had not been able to assure with "certainty about the possible degree of connection" of this
person to Ibrahim Hussein Berro235.
239. Additionally, the report documents the information obtained from a testimonial statement taken from
two of Ibrahim Berro's brothers who resided in the United States. Berro's brothers affirmed, first, that Ibrahim
used to be absent from the family home "for long periods, between two and three months, and that at the time
his family received the news of his death, he had not been home for a considerable time” 236. Secondly, they
assured that the leader of Hezbollah attended the funeral ceremony for the death of Ibrahim, an organization
that "had reported that Ibrahim died in combat with Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, without his body being
recovered”237
240. Prosecutors assessed the results of a comparative expert opinion carried out between two photographs
of Berro delivered by his brothers and the identikit built 72 hours after the attack based on the testimony of
the witness Nicolasa Romero, who claimed to have seen the face of the driver of a Renault Trafic van driving
down Pasteur street moments before the explosion. This expert opinion revealed "specific coincidences
indicated in the eyes, nose, contour of the face, hairline, and eyebrows”238. Likewise, the prosecutors mention
the photographic recognition carried out by the witness Romero, who "after her initial doubts and after being
presented with the identikit" singled out from among a series of 4 photographs the one that corresponded to
Berro and affirmed "that the person 'He was a big guy like this, of this build, with big brows, I see a similarity
in his face, he has abundant eyebrows, the texture of his face is similar ...”239.
241. It was not until a management report corresponding to the month of July 2017, that the UFI AMIA
reported carrying out a genetic comparison test of all the samples on file which revealed the “verification of a
genetic profile from of the material reserved in the PFA laboratory that does not correspond to any of the
known victims”240, a finding that would support, in principle, the hypothesis that the Trafic van that exploded
in front of the AMIA was driven by a suicide bomber.
242. In the same management report, the UFI AMIA described the process through which - with the
collaboration of the authorities of the United States of America - the genetic profile of the sample found in the
Chemical Laboratory Division of the PFA was compared with the genetic profile of one of Berro's brothers. In
November 2017, according to the aforementioned report, the FBI reported that “after typing the autosomal
STR, Y-STR and mitochondrial DNA of the alleged attacker's brother and carrying out the comparison with the
genetic profile obtained from the sample recovered from the PFA Chemical Laboratory, it was determined that
the latter 'could not have originated from a paternal or maternal relative […] to include a brother or halfbrother'”241.
- Commission’s Considerations
243. The Commission observes, first, that a large part of the investigation of the AMIA case and, in particular,
that which refers to the determination of the identity of the person who would have immolated themselves is
based on intelligence reports made by the Secretary of Intelligence of the State or other Argentine intelligence
organisms. In this regard, the Commission considers it pertinent to make the following considerations.
Annex 5. UFI AMIA 2006 Report p. 704. Annex 12 to the petitioners' communication dated November 11, 2019.
Annex 5. UFI AMIA 2006 Report p. 714. Annex 12 to the petitioners' communication dated November 11, 2019.
237 Annex 5. UFI AMIA 2006 Report p. 714. Annex 12 to the petitioners' communication dated November 11, 2019.
238 Annex 5. UFI AMIA 2006 Report p. 768. Annex 12 to the petitioners' communication dated November 11, 2019.
239 Annex 5. UFI AMIA 2006 Report p. 768. Annex 12 to the petitioners' communication dated November 11, 2019.
240 Annex 13. UFI AMIA Management Report July 2017. Page 8. Annex 19 to the petitioner's communication dated November 11, 2019.
241 Annex 11. UFI AMIA Management Report July 2016. Page 12. Annex 13 to the petitioner's communication dated November 11, 2019.
235
236
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