Maradona criticised for giving jersey to Iran president

BUENOS AIRES: The families of victims of a 1994 bomb attack on a Jewish cultural centre here have criticised Argentina's football legend Diego Maradona for giving his team jersey to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"It's shameful and it's an outrage," said Sergio Burstein, director of Family and Friends of the Victims of the Attack, Spain's EFE news agency reported Sunday.

The bomb attack on the AMIA Jewish headquarters in Buenos Aires in 1994 killed 85 people. The attack was attributed to Islamist terrorists said to be backed by Tehran.

"To see Iran's president with the jersey really causes deep sorrow, it is offensive," Burstein told the Jewish News Agency (AJN) here.

Iran's official IRNA news agency reported Friday Maradona had sent his famous blue No. 10 jersey to Ahmadunejad and expressed his wish to meet him in person.

Maradona said he did not want to get involved in the politics and rejected the criticism from the Jewish community here. Argentina's Jewish population is the second largest after the US living outside Israel.

"Maradona can't say he doesn't mix in politics. This is politics. He doesn't want to understand and it doesn't matter to him. But to us it does matter. In Argentina, there have been more than 100 deaths due to terrorism," Burstein said.

He said the Iranian president has been protecting ex-officials of the Tehran government, wanted by Argentina for the 1994 bomb attack.