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Argentina’s decision to press ahead with an in-absentia trial of Iranian and Lebanese suspects in the 1994 AMIA bombing is more than a legal milestone—it’s a reminder that while the world fixates on Tehran’s nuclear brinkmanship, the regime’s external terror apparatus has often been sidelined, and at times enabled, by prisoner swaps and short-term deals. The result has been a widening culture of impunity for a regime repeatedly identified by Western security services as the leading state sponsor of terrorism.
In Buenos Aires, the federal appeals court has upheld Judge Daniel Rafecas’s move to proceed without the accused in custody, breaking a three-decade stalemate. The message extends well beyond Argentina: terrorism cases linked to the clerical dictatorship and its proxies can advance even when suspects are shielded by political cover, legal maneuvering, or geography. The question now is whether other jurisdictions will follow.
Recent European cases show why that matters. Belgium’s release of Asadollah Assadi—convicted for directing a 2018 bomb plot against an Iranian opposition rally near Paris—in exchange for a detained aid worker, and Sweden’s swap that sent Hamid Noury—convicted for his role in the 1988 prison massacres—back to Iran in return for Swedish nationals, taught Tehran that hostage-taking and extraterritorial plots can be bartered. Those outcomes shape risk–reward calculations inside a security state that blends intelligence, diplomacy and organized crime to achieve effects abroad.
Western security services have become unusually explicit about the threat picture. British, Dutch, German and U.S. authorities have detailed Iranian operations targeting dissidents and officials, from cyber-espionage and surveillance to assassination and kidnapping schemes. Spanish investigators probing the shooting of former European Parliament vice-president Alejo Vidal-Quadras have described an international criminal network tied to his public opposition to Iran’s leadership. This is not a scatter of unrelated incidents; it is an ecosystem in which state organs rely on proxy militias and hired criminal muscle to intimidate opponents, hit targets and test red lines.
#Tehran's mercenaries blew off #bombs in Western capitals and embassies, killing innocent people from all ethnic and religious groups indiscriminately and everywhere. 2/9 pic.twitter.com/fPZFArFESL
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 6, 2022
The nuclear file has monopolized headlines, but the AMIA development underscores a parallel reality: focusing on enrichment levels while sidelining accountability for extraterritorial terror leaves communities vulnerable and erodes deterrence. Argentina’s courts are effectively saying the two tracks—nuclear and terrorism—must be handled together if policy is to be coherent.
The doctrine increasingly described by investigators is one of outsourced deniability: the regime uses criminal intermediaries to disguise state direction. If that doctrine goes unpunished, the “next AMIA” isn’t inevitable, but it becomes only a security failure away. That is why the in-absentia proceedings matter. They offer a template for jurisdictions facing sanctuary states: keep cases moving, document chains of command, and demonstrate that time and distance will not shield suspects from process.
The #Iranian regime aired an interview with Asadollah Assadi, its convicted diplomat #terrorist, who was jailed in Belgium for a foiled 2018 bomb plot in Paris. This move seeks to bolster its hostage-taking diplomacy for both domestic and international audiences. pic.twitter.com/SIhC5faqkK
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 6, 2024
There is also a policy lesson for capitals that have relied on ad hoc deals. Treating terror cases and hostage diplomacy as separate problems has produced a perverse equilibrium—loud condemnations, quiet trades—that rewards coercion while undercutting courts and investigators who secured hard-won convictions.
There should be no deals with terrorism—full stop. Hostage diplomacy and extraterritorial plots must trigger a unified, no-concessions policy: no swaps, no side-payments, no easing of pressure. Instead, governments should prosecute to the fullest extent, expand universal-jurisdiction cases, and coordinate automatic penalties for each new detention or plot—asset freezes, travel bans, and criminal charges for officials and cut-outs.
Iranian regime’s embassies are the principal facilitators and operational cover for state-sponsored terrorism. The case of Assadollah Assadi—the Third Counsellor at Iran’s embassy in Vienna—demonstrated how the 2018 bomb plot against the NCRI gathering was conceived and directed from within the diplomatic network. These embassies provide the logistical, financial, and intelligence backbone for extraterritorial operations, coordinating teams and moving equipment under diplomatic protection. Until these operational bases are shut down and affiliated operatives expelled and prosecuted, the regime’s terror apparatus will not stop.
Law enforcement should dismantle the enabling networks—front companies, financial channels, and contracted criminal gangs—and governments should close the regime’s embassies that serve as operational hubs and expel its “diplomat-terrorists.” Meanwhile, intelligence services should harden protection for targeted communities. The message must be unambiguous: those who direct, bankroll, or outsource terror face arrest warrants, isolation, and long sentences—not bargaining tables.