Argentine prosecutor who accused president dead

An Argentine prosecutor was found dead just hours before giving what was expected to be damning testimony against President Cristina Kirchner, in what appears to have been a suicide, officials said Monday.

The body of Alberto Nisman, 51, who had received threats, was found overnight in his 13th-floor apartment in the upscale Puerto Madero waterfront neighborhood of the capital Buenos Aires.

"All signs point to suicide," said Public Safety Secretary Sergio Berni, an assertion backed up by initial forensic findings.

Federal prosecutor Viviana Fein said Nisman died of "a gunshot wound to the temple" and "there was no role of additional parties (in the death)."

However, there was no suicide note or witnesses, Fein added, calling for "caution," while the leader of one opposition party called it "an assassination."

Investigators should look at whether Nisman was under pressure from anybody, and who the gun belonged to, local media reports quoted Fein as saying. The weapon was not Nisman's, the reports said.

Nisman, who had accused Kirchner of obstructing an investigation into a 1994 Jewish center bombing, was due to testify at a congressional hearing on Monday to provide evidence of his claims.

Since 2004 he had been investigating the van bombing of the Argentine Jewish Charities Federation, or AMIA, which left 85 people dead and 300 others wounded in the worst attack of its kind in the South American country.

Kirchner had denied the accusation.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.