orchestrating the 1989 attack on the La Tablada military barracks by the MTP group. Merlo, who claims it was a kidnapping orchestrated by SIDE, had traveled to Mexico to meet with Mexican politicians of the PRD, who were cooperating in an international push to free the guerrillas responsible for the La Tablada attack who were, and still are, serving prison term in Argentine jails. Merlo arrived in the Mexican capital with a fake Uruguayan passport, where he soon realized that the Mexican security forces were following him. He thought they were just doing basic surveillance on him to see if he was doing any illegal activity in Mexican territory. On Saturday, October 28, he spotted three Argentine-looking men in Tepoztlán Square, "one of which -he said- looked like he was from the Argentine intelligence service or the police". Merlo was driving a friend's truck, after spotting the Argentines, he tried to lose his entourage of followers by driving into the town of Cuatula. A few minutes later, Merlo claims he was stopped, surrounded, and shot several times until he put his hands out the truck's destroyed window. Merlo goes on to claim that the Mexican security services handcuffed him, and made him face the Argentine, who nodded silently (affirming that he was who they were looking for). Merlo was taken into the Mexican Migrations Department, where he claims was interrogated three times by SIDE agents. The last time they interrogated him, they asked if he was Gorriarán Merlo, he answered back "yes", and simultaneously asked for asylum. (Mexico has a tradition for giving asylum to politically prosecuted people in other Latin American countries). One of the Mexican police man told them that there was "receptiveness" about his request, but at five in the morning, Mexican authorities took him to the airport and put in him in SIDE's plane, where the same SIDE agent from Tepoztlán and the interrogation was present. The operation was allegedly carried out by the Sala Patria group of the Secretariat. Gorrarián Merlo served prison time in Argentina for his crimes, and was later pardoned in 2003 by President Eduardo Duhalde. AMIA investigation Judicial reports during the investigation have displayed sufficient evidence of SIDE's involvement in the AMIA case investigation. In 2003, President Néstor Kirchner signed a decree that opened all SIDE's files (about 15,000) and allowed the ex-Secretary of Intelligence, Hugo Anzorreguy, and many intelligence personnel