Under-threat Argentine reporter flees country after story on death of president’s accuser

A reporter who broke the story that an Argentine prosecutor was found dead shortly before he was about to make explosive allegations about President Cristina Kirchner has fled Argentina after receiving threats.

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Journalist Damian Pachter (left), who fled to Israel, said he would not return under President Cristina Kirchner's administration. Photos: Reuters

Published: 2:45pm, 26 Jan 2015Updated: 7:56pm, 26 Jan 2015

A reporter who broke the story that an Argentine prosecutor was found dead shortly before he was about to make explosive allegations about President Cristina Kirchner has fled Argentina after receiving threats.

“Now safe in Tel Aviv. Thanks everybody. We’ll talk soon,” Damian Pachter tweeted.

A citizen of Argentina and Israel, he worked for the English-language Buenos Aires Herald. Pachter fled Argentina after receiving threats and being followed, he told colleagues in other media.

The reporter, who also worked with Israel’s Haaretz, told colleagues his phones had been tapped in Argentina.

“I will return when my sources tell me that the conditions have changed,” Pachter told the Herald. “I don’t think that will happen under this administration.”

Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead with a bullet to the head in his Buenos Aires home a week ago, just before he was set to go before a congressional hearing to accuse Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman of shielding Iranian officials implicated in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charities federation office that killed 85 people.

It was the worst terror attack in modern history for Argentina, home to Latin America’s largest Jewish community.