The former president of Argentina has been charged with derailing an investigation into the bombing of a Jewish centre that killed 85 people more than two decades ago .

Carlos Menem, who served as president between 1989 and 1999, is one of 13 people accused of covering up Argentina's worst terrorist attack.

In July 1994, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community centre in the heart of Buenos Aires, killing 85 and injuring 300 people.

While prosecutors have accused the Iranian government of being behind the explosion and enlisting Hizbollah to carry it out, no one has ever been convicted.

But now Mr Menem, 85, together with former prosecutors, police officers, a Jewish community leader and a mechanic who owned the car that carried the bomb, is to go on trial. If convicted, the accused face between three and 15 years in prison.

The trial began last Friday but Mr Menem failed to attend, citing health reasons. The trial is expected to last more than a year with 100 witnesses being called.

"The charges are for serious crimes," said Rodrigo Borda, a lawyer acting for many of the victims' relatives.

It is believed that the prosecution will focus on Mr Menem's motives for blocking the investigation of a "Syrian trail" that led to Syrian-born Alberto Kanoore Edul.

Mr Edul, who died in 2010, was thought to have been involved after records showed he was in contact with both the mechanic who owned the car carrying the explosives, as well as Moshen Rabbani, the cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires at the time, who allegedly planned the attack. Mr Rabbani is believed to be in Iran and a warrant is out for his arrest

According to reports, any action taken against Mr Edul was halted by Mr Menem - whose parents emigrated to Argentina from Syria.

In January, prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who had called the case a "national disgrace" and made accusations against Argentina's current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, was found shot dead in his apartment

The ongoing mysteries surrounding the case and Mr Nisman's supposed suicide have continued to alienate Argentina's 200,000-strong Jewish community from the government.

AMIA said it would continue the "push towards justice that can finally end this path of darkness and uncertainty".