(COLOMBO) – Sri Lanka on Wednesday opted to remain silent on a request from Argentina and Interpol to arrest the Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi who is reportedly accompanying the Iranian President Dr. Ebrahim Raisi on a State visit to the Indian-ocean island republic.
Vahidi is sought by Buenos Aires for a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed 85 people.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office in Colombo said that Vahidi’s name was not on the list of the visiting Iranian delegation adding that the matter should end there.
This a sensitive issue and therefore it should be treated in the same manner, he said.
The Iranian President visited the country on an invitation from the Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and together the two Heads of State inaugurated a gigantic irrigation project that was partly funded by Tehran.
In a statement carried on foreign media the Argentine foreign ministry said: “Argentina seeks the international arrest of those responsible for the AMIA attack of 1994, which killed 85 people, and who remain in their positions with total impunity.”
“One of them is Ahmad Vahidi, sought by Argentine justice as one of those responsible for the attack against AMIA,” said the statement, which was co-signed by the security ministry.
Argentina has previously stated that Vahidi, a former senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, is one of the key masterminds of the AMIA bombing and sought his extradition.
