Both Iran and Uruguay have denied an Israeli newspaper report asserting that Uruguay has expelled a senior Iranian diplomat for planting of a dummy bomb near Israel’s embassy in the country last month.
Citing a “senior official in Jerusalem,” the Israeli daily Haaretz reported last Friday that the diplomat was expelled two weeks ago. Uruguayan officials briefed Israel on the expulsion, but made no public announcement about it, Haaretz said.
“Investigations carried out by Uruguay’s intelligence services after the discovery of the device yielded information pointing to the possible involvement of someone at the Iranian embassy,” Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent wrote.
“The Uruguayan government turned to Iran’s government for information and, after consultations between the two it was decided to expel one of the senior diplomats at Iran’s embassy.”
But the Uruquayan government immediately denied the newspaper report, and the Iranian embassy in Uruguay added its denial the next day, while charging that the Israeli newspaper was trying to foment Islamophobia and tarnish the Islamic Republic’s image.
But there was a fake bomb. On January 8, Montevideo bomb squad officers detonated what turned out to be a fake bomb near the Israeli embassy in Montevideo.
The convincing-looking fake — complete with fuse, detonator and other elements found in a real bomb — was detected some 70 meters (230 feet) from the building by bomb-sniffing dogs.
After destroying the device, bomb brigade Lieutenant Colonel Alfredo Larramendi told reporters that it “never posed any danger” but might have been part of a dress rehearsal for the real thing.
“It might have been put there to see the response time” of responders, or “to size up the quality of the security of Israel’s embassy,” Larramendi said.