Argentine president to dissolve intelligence service after top prosecutor’s suspicious death

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner is preparing to dissolve the country's domestic intelligence service following the suspicious death of one of the country's top prosecutors.

Ms Kirchner said the government is now drafting laws to completely revamp the nation's intelligence organisations.

"The plan is to dissolve the Intelligence Secretariat and create a Federal Intelligence Agency," she said.

The new organisation will have a leadership chosen by the president but subject to Senate approval, said Ms Kirchner, who has alleged that the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman was a plot to discredit her.

Mr Nisman was found dead in his apartment early last week, just hours before he was set to testify that Ms Kirchner had bargained a trade deal with Iran in exchange for erasing the Shiite Muslim country’s ties to a terrorist bombing that killed scores of Jewish citizens in Buenos Aires in 1994.

His death was originally thought a suicide, but Ms Kirchner herself has now said it was murder.

However, she has denied responsibility, saying Mr Nisman’s accusations had held little weight.

She has suggested rogue intelligence agents could be the culprits.

Citizens have taken to the streets in their thousands to demand action on what has widely been seen as a political assassination.