Argentina seeks U.S. help in rooting out Nazis

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 17 (Reuters) -- Argentina, once the hiding place of nazis Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, asked the United States on Thursday for all its information on the flight of Nazis here to root out those who remain.

"We asked the U.S. Secretary (of State Madeleine Albright) for everything they have regarding the arrival of nazis in Argentina and told her we are giving the Nazi Activity in Argentina Investigation Commission all necessary resources," Foreign Minister Adalberto Rodriguez Giavarini said.

Albright is in Argentina, home to Latin America's largest Jewish community, as part of a tour of the region.

Embarrassed by its image as a sanctuary for nazis after the Second World War, the government in recent years has created an independent commission to shed light on whether any remain and has set up an anti-discrimination office to find them.

President Fernando de la Rua apologized for Argentina's Nazi collaboration during a visit to the United States earlier this year and has admitted anti-Semitism remains a problem.

Argentina saw two bombings against Jewish targets in the past eight years. The first, in 1992, occurred against the Israeli Embassy where 29 people died, and the next was in 1994 against a Jewish community center which killed 86 people.

"We will continue to cooperate with the Argentine government, as we have ever since the attack, to identify those guilty of this horrendous crime, and to bring them to justice," Albright told leaders of Argentina's Jewish community at the new building erected in central Buenos Aires after the attack.

Twenty Argentines were accused this year of being accomplices in the July 1994, bombing, including five former Buenos Aires province policemen who traded in stolen cars.

All of the 20 suspects allegedly helped in supplying the attackers with a van that was later packed with at least 660 pounds (300 kg) of explosives and blown up outside the Association of Argentine Jewish Mutual Societies (AMIA).

"Our two governments have cooperated in training counter terrorism teams and I believe this cooperation has helped to make any further attacks of this sort much less likely in the future," Albright told AMIA head Hugo Strower, Rogelio Cichowolsky of the Argentine Israeli Associations Delegation (DAIA) and B'Nai B'Rith's Roberto Nul.

In the past, Argentine federal Judge Juan Jose Galeano, who heads the investigation, said he suspected Hizbollah of bombing the AMIA on orders from Iran. The Lebanese-based Islamic group and the Tehran government both denied the charge.

Argentine efforts to root out nazis have resulted in two extraditions in recent years.

Former Nazi Capt. Erich Priebke was extradited to Italy in 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment for taking part in the 1944 massacre of 335 men and boys at the Ardeatine Caves, south of Rome, considered Italy's worst Second World War atrocity.

Two years ago, Croatian concentration camp chief Dinko Sakic was arrested and extradited to Zagreb where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes at the Jasenovac camp under the Ustasha puppet regime of 1942 to 1944.

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