Ariel Lifschitz, a man who did much to bring crimes and irregularities at the heart of the initial investigation into the AMIA attack to light, was last night briefly kidnapped by armed men in the city of Buenos Aires. Lifschitz’s captors identified themselves as members of the SIDE, the Argentine state intelligence service, and before they abandoned their victim on waste ground on the edge of the city they tortured him with knives and a blow torch. He had the letters “AMIA” carved into his back and one account of what happened mentions a series of numbers being carved into his arm.

According to Lifschitz, he was told to “Stop fucking with the SIDE”, and his captors expressed great interest in whether he was in possession of cassette recordings of phone taps of various of the fugitive Iranian suspects in the case.

The initial investigation into the AMIA massacre was led by Judge Juan José Galeano As time passed and it became apparent that Galeano’s enquiries were getting nowhere, suspicions arose as to whether the judge was really intent on finding the culprits or whether Carlos Menem - then president of Argenina - had given him the job of protecting them. Galeano was eventually removed from the case and continues to face charges of grave misconduct.

One of the chief architects of Galeano’s downfall was Lifschitz, one of his own legal secretaries, who - among other things - revealed details of the 400,000 dollar bribe paid by Galeano to used car dealer Carlos Telleldín to induce him to give false testimony against a number of local suspects in the case.

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CORRRECTION: The victim of the attack is called Claudio Lifschitz. Apologies.