BUENOS AIRES: An Argentine judge on Thursday ordered the arrest of former president Cristina Kirchner for allegedly covering up Iranian involvement in a 1994 bombing at a Buenos Aires Jewish centre that left 85 people dead.

Judge Claudio Bonadio also called on the Senate to begin procedures to strip her of her parliamentary immunity, which requires a two-thirds majority.

The 64-year-old former president held a press conference in Buenos Aires to hit back at the charges, saying the order seeking her arrest was “an excess that violates the rule of law.”

Kirchner, who has long claimed her legal woes are politically motivated, accused center-right President Mauricio Macri of “manipulating” the justice system to “persecute the opposition.”

In a press conference frequently interrupted by applause from her supporters, she described Bonadio’s main charge of “treason against the Fatherland” as “an insult to the intelligence of Argentines.”

Bonadio also ordered the arrest of former foreign minister Hector Timerman and several other former officials in the Kirchner government, including former top aide Carlos Zannini.

The ex-head of the Federal Intelligence Agency, Oscar Parrilli, was placed under house arrest and ordered not to leave the country.

Kirchner stands accused of signing a 2012 deal with Tehran to allow Iranian officials suspected of ordering the attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) -- which killed 85 people and wounded 300 -- to be investigated in their own country, rather than in Argentina.

Bonadio asserts that this was part of “an orchestrated criminal plan” to cover up the alleged involvement of Iranian officials in return for lucrative trade deals with the Islamic republic.

The charges have been rejected several times by courts as lacking substance, but the case was reopened in February this year.

The former head of state said in court that a memorandum of understanding with Tehran -- passed by the Argentine congress but not by Iran -- “had one aim: to allow an investigation into the Iranians accused in the AMIA attack, so that the case could move forward.”

She has argued in the past that since Iran and Argentina have no extradition agreement, and Argentina does not carry out trials in absentia, there was no other way to proceed with the investigation.

Agence France-Presse