The Department of Justice has charged a high-ranking member of the terrorist organization Hezbollah for his alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday by the DOJ.
The 1994 attack – the worst in Argentina’s history – killed 85 people and injured about 300.
Samuel Salman El Reda faces terrorism charges, according to the DOJ, which include providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization; conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization; aiding and abetting the receipt of military-type training from a designated foreign terrorist organization; and conspiring to receive military-type training from a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen called the indictment “a message.”
“Nearly three decades ago, long-time Hezbollah terrorist operative Samuel Salman El Reda allegedly helped plan and execute the heinous attack on a Buenos Aires Jewish community center that murdered 85 innocent people and injured countless others,” Olsen said in a news release. “This indictment serves as a message to those who engage in acts of terror: that the Justice Department’s memory is long, and we will not relent in our efforts to bring them to justice.”
The charges carry a combined up to 55 years in prison.
El Reda is also a member of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO), according to the indictment, an extension of the terrorist organization “responsible for the planning and coordination of intelligence, counterintelligence and terrorist activities on behalf of Hezbollah outside of Lebanon,” the DOJ said.
El Reda “helped coordinate the July 18, 1994, bombing of the AMIA building by carrying out IJO attack planning operations in Buenos Aires and relaying information to IJO operatives,” court documents said. El Reda has also participated in terrorist operations in South America, Asia and Lebanon dating back to at least 1993, the news release said.
It is unclear whether El Reda, who has Colombian and Lebanese citizenship, has an attorney as he “is based in Lebanon and remains at large,” the DOJ said.
The FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating El Reda’s alleged involvement in the attack.
An Argentinian prosecutor who was investigating the 1994 bombing was killed in 2015. His killing was ruled a murder in 2017 and remains unsolved.
