BUENOS AIRES: A judge issued an international arrest warrant on Thursday for Iranian ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and other top Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charity in Argentina that killed 85 people.

Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral said he had asked the government of Iran and Interpol to hand over the former president on a warrant issued for “crimes against humanity” in the bombing attack on the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association, a Jewish charities federation office, in which 85 people died and 300 were injured. No one has ever been convicted for the bombing, Argentina's worst terrorist attack, which occurred on July 9, 1994.

Another attack in 1992 on the Israeli embassy, in which 22 people were killed and 200 were wounded, also remains unsolved.

Lawyers for AMIA have long accused the Shia militia Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, of carrying out the attack.A succession of Argentine governments has been accused of botching or undermining the investigation.

President Nestor Kirchner has taken up the cause, as he has in many human rights cases stemming from Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.—AFP