A man still wanted for questioning in connection to the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center stayed in South Africa earlier this month without the local authorities pursuing any action against him, the South African newspaper City Press reported last week.

The City Press report quotes a representative of the Simon Weisenthal Center as saying that Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Hadi Soleimanpour visited the country in March and left without interference from the authorities, even though he is still wanted for questioning in Argentina in connection to the bombing of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina building that left 85 people dead and more than 300 injured.

At the time of the bombing, Soleimanpour was Iran’s ambassador to Argentina.

Argentine prosecutors in 2006 accused the Iranian government of orchestrating the bombing and using Hezbollah to carry it out.

An arrest warrant was issued by an Argentine judge against Soleimanpour is 2002, but in 2007, Interpol removed the “red notice” that had been attached to the diplomat. A red notice means that Interpol can circulate a warrant against subjects throughout the world with the request that they be arrested and extradited.

In other Iran news, Iranian human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari was awarded the Theodor Haecker award for honesty and political courage, but will not be able to travel to Germany to receive the award as she is banned from leaving Iran.

Ahari is one of the founders of the Human Rights Reporters Committee, as well as a member of the Society for the Support of Child Laborers and Street Kids and of the One Million Signatures Campaign. She is still awaiting imprisonment after being arrested by Iranian authorities in the wake of protests following the contested Iranian presidential election in July 2009. (© 1995 - 2011 The Jerusalem Post. 03/20/11)