Dead Argentine Prosecutor's Security Chief Suspended

Buenos Aires: The security chief for the Argentine prosecutor who was found dead just hours before making allegations against the President, has been suspended and is under investigation, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

Alberto Nisman was found in his Buenos Aires home with a bullet to the head on January 18, before he was to appear at a congressional hearing to accuse President Cristina Kirchner of shielding Iranian officials implicated in a bomb attack on a Jewish charities federation office in 1994 that left 85 dead.

Ruben Benitez, a Nisman confidant and the third officer to be suspended in the case, had coordinated a security team of 10 officers who protected the prosecutor.

According to a leaked statement made to the investigation's head prosecutor, Benitez said he advised Nisman against buying a gun just days before his death.

But the officers have fallen under scrutiny for contradictory statements to the prosecutor in charge of the case, Viviana Fein. And police authorities say the security force broke with protocol when they went several hours out of contact with Nisman on the day of his death, and failing to report it to their superiors.

Two other guards, Armando Niz and Luis Ismael Mino, have also been suspended.

Meanwhile Diego Lagomarsino, a Nisman colleague who lent the prosecutor the pistol with which he was killed, and is believed to be the last person to have seen Nisman alive, was expected to give a press conference.

Accusing of giving a gun to someone other than its registered owner, Lagomarsino is the only individual so far charged in the case.

Nisman is to be buried on Thursday at a Jewish cemetery in La Tablada, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

The prosecutor had accused Kirchner and her foreign minister Hector Timerman of shielding Iranian officials implicated in the bombing of the Argentine-Jewish Mutual Association.

After Nisman's death, Kirchner suggested he had been manipulated by former intelligence agents who then killed him to smear her.  Kirchner on Monday announced she was disbanding Argentina's intelligence service.

Investigators have said Nisman's death appeared to be suicide, but it has been classified as a "suspicious" death and homicide or an "induced suicide" have not been ruled out.