Iran prosecutor plans legal complaint vs Argentina

TEHRAN, Oct 29 (Reuters) Iran plans to file a legal complaint against Argentine authorities who are seeking the arrest of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's prosecutor general told state television.

Argentina's Prosecutor Alberto Nisman on Wednesday said he sought Rafsanjani in connection with the 1994 attack on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

Iran has always denied any role in the attack and rejected the renewed charges this week.

''We will seriously pursue the matter,'' Ghorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, Iran's prosecutor general, told state television.

''We reserve our right to file a complaint in the relevant courts,'' he said.

Dorri Najafabadi also told the official IRNA news agency on Friday that Iran would ''demand spiritual and financial compensation and will not tolerate a conspiracy against the Iranian nation.'' The judge overseeing the investigation must now decide whether to order an international arrest warrant for Rafsanjani, who was president at the time of the attack.

Britain's interior ministry in 2003 rejected Argentina's request to extradite Iran's former ambassador to Buenos Aires, Hadi Soleimanpour. It said there was insufficient evidence against the former envoy to justify his extradition.

No one has been convicted for blowing up the centre, in part because judges determined in 2004 that a long investigation into the bombing had been botched. But they ordered the probe to continue.

Reuters DKS VP0432