Journalist Who Revealed Death of Prosecutor Nisman Leaves Argentina in Fear

BUENOS AIRES – The journalist of the daily Buenos Aires Herald, Damian Pachter, who last Sunday announced on his Twitter account the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, left Argentina Saturday in fear after finding that he was being followed, the Argentine Journalism Forum, or Fopea, said.

“Fopea reports that journalist Damian Pacter left the country because he feared for his safety,” the journalism association said on the social network Twitter.

“Pacter told Fopea yesterday, Friday, that he was being followed and thought he had better leave the country,” it said.

Damian Pachter set off alarms last Sunday with a scoop on social networks that there had been an incident in the home of prosecutor Nisman and a detachment of security forces had been sent there.

“They found prosecutor Alberto Nisman in the bathroom of his home in Puerto Madero lying in a pool of blood. He was not breathing. Doctors are there,” Pachter tweeted at midnight Sunday, three hours before the prosecutor’s death was officially confirmed.

“I’m leaving because my life is in danger,” the journalist said on the Infobae Web site, minutes before leaving the country on Saturday.

“Since all this began, someone who has been a close, trustworthy source for years and who knows how to move in the world of intelligence, has been sending me hints,” he said.

“I don’t known when they started following me” Pachter said on Infobae, but from a tweet he received from within the government, “today it was all confirmed. ‘Leave because they’re looking for you.’”

“I never imagined that after that tweet, in five days I’d have to leave the country on the basis of real evidence,” the journalist said.

“I don’t believe this solves Nisman’s death. Power covers its tracks,” he said.

After the news was made public, in a communique posted on the Web site of the daily Ambito, which belongs to the same media group as the Buenos Aires Herald, the company said that the journalist “at no time” expressed his fears to his superiors.

Alberto Nisman was found dead from a shot to the head at home in his bathtub in circumstances that have not been explained by investigators, who have not discarded any hypotheses.

Five days before his death, prosecutor Nisman had entered a complaint against Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Exterior Minister Hector Timerman, and several ruling party leaders for presumably orchestrating a plan to protect the Iranians suspected of attacking the Jewish organization AMIA in 1994, in exchange for stepping up trade with Iran.