Ex-Iran envoy avoids extradition
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Tehran denies any involvement in the 1994 bombing.
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- The UK Home Office has rejected Argentina's request for the extradition of Hade Soleimanpour, the ex-Iranian diplomat accused of being involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center.
Home Secretary David Blunkett decided Wednesday there was not enough prima facie evidence to proceed at this stage.
"Soleimanpour is free to move around as he would before," a Home Office spokesman said.
The attack on the Buenos Aires Jewish community center killed 85 people and injured 200.
Soleimanpour, a 47-year-old research student in Durham, had been arrested in August at his home in Durham, northeast England, on an extradition warrant.
A judge in Argentina had issued the arrest warrant through Interpol as well as warrants for seven others.
Israel and the United States have long said they suspected Iranian-backed Middle Eastern rebels to be responsible for the attack. Iran denies involvement.
The warrant had alleged that on or before July 18, 1994, he conspired with others to murder people at the AMIA Jewish center.
Tehran, which withdrew its ambassador to Argentina after being implicated in the bomb, reacted angrily to the arrest.
"The measure had been politically motivated and has been carried out under the influence of the Zionists. It is meant to serve the interests of the Zionist regime," the Islamic Republic News Agency had quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi as saying.
Argentina's 300,000-strong Jewish community is the biggest in Latin America and the seventh largest in the world. In 1992, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 29 people.
