Abdul Karim Paz is a controversial Argentinian figure. A Catholic convert to Islam and one of Argentina's leading Shia figures, he is the head of the largest mosque in the South American country and a main Iranian agent of influence in Latin America.
Paz was mentored by Mohsen Rabbani, the chief architect of Iran’s Latin American missionary network aimed at exporting the Islamic Revolution and the main suspect in the 1994 deadly bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
More recently, Paz defended the Islamic Republic’s use of brutal force in its crackdown on nationwide protests sparked by the September 2022 death of a young woman in police custody.
Who is Abdul Karim Paz?
Born Santiago Ricardo Paz Zuberbühler Bullrich into a traditional Argentine family, he was educated in an elitist school in Buenos Aires: the San Martín de Tours school. While studying philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires, he converted to Shia Islam and spent five years studying at the controversial Al-Mustafa International University in the north-eastern Iranian city of Qom. The university, founded by Rabbani, is seen as a key element of the Islamic Republic’s indoctrination system abroad.
Paz returned to South America in 1993 and lived for some time in Chile, where he founded an Islamic cultural center in Santiago. He later became the imam of Buenos Aires’s At-Tauhid Mosque, founded by Rabbani in 1983.
An Argentine convert to Islam and frequent visitor to the mosque who preferred to remain anonymous told IranWire that "a letter of recommendation from Sheikh Abdul Karim Paz is the only tool that can give you access to studies in Qom, but for that, you must have earned the Sheikh's trust."
At-Tauhid Mosque is located at 3614 Felipe Vallese Street in Buenos Aires. Annur TV, a pro-Iranian channel that broadcasts news in Spanish about Islam and the Middle East, operates at the same address.
Rabbani’s “Right Hand”
The late Alberto Nisman, the Argentine special prosecutor for the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, spent over a decade investigating how Iran had used "cultural" activities as a cover to infiltrate communities in Latin America to build up and support espionage and terrorist networks in the region.
Nisman’s most recent case, presented a week before his death in January 2015, accused members of Argentina’s former government of engaging in a criminal plot with Iranian officials to cover up Tehran’s role in the AMIA bombing in which 85 people were killed and more than 300 were injured.
Among the eight Iranians implicated in the AMIA attack, Nisman identified Rabbani as the “mastermind” behind the bombing. A high-level Iranian intelligence operative, Rabbani had multiple covers in Argentina, ranging from a Shia cleric to the cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires.
Nisman calls Paz the “right hand” of Rabbani. He helped recruit disciples to train under Rabbani at Al Mustafa International University.
Amini "Simply Died of a Heart Attack”
Seven months after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody sparked anti-government protests across Iran, an Argentinian media outlet affiliated with the Islamic Republic re-published an interview in which Paz denied that the young woman was killed by security forces, despite widespread evidence to the contrary.
Iranian authorities claim Amini died of natural causes, but eyewitnesses and her family say she was beaten while inside a police van that took her to a detention center. She had been detained for allegedly wearing a mandatory headscarf improperly.
"She simply died of a heart attack because police stopped her, not because she was beaten," Paz said in the interview, which was first published by a pro-Iranian Latin American media in December.
The Iranian authorities have cracked down hard on the women-led protest movement triggered by Amini’s death, killing more than 520 demonstrators and unlawfully detaining over 20,000, activists say. Following biased trials, the judiciary has handed down stiff sentences, including the death penalty, to protesters.
Paz defended the use of brutal force to crack down on the protests, falsely claiming that the requirement for women to wear a head covering in public places is enshrined in the Islamic Republic’s constitution.
He also reiterated Iranian officials’ claim that the protest movement was orchestrated by the West, without providing evidence to back up his assertion.
IranWire tried to contact Paz through the At-Tauhid Mosque, which declined to respond to our request.
visit the accountability section
In this section of Iran Wire, you can contact the officials and launch your campaign for various problems
Interested in writing for IranWire?
Share your stories.
comments