Argentina went through an assassination attempt again after several decades after an individual tried to fire a weapon, which he failed to fire, centimeters from the vice president’s head Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
The 35-year-old man of Brazilian nationality was identified as Fernando Andrés Sabag Montiel and was arrested Thursday night after an intervention by the guards. The incident occurred at the entrance to Fernández de Kirchner’s house, where hundreds of protesters have been gathering for days to support the vice president in the midst of a trial for corruption.
At that moment there was a riot and Cristina Kirchner was removed from that area, although she continued to greet the rest of the militants as she did this week when she arrived from the Argentine Senate. The man’s arm came within inches of the former president.
Assassination: what is it and what is the penalty in Argentina
The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) defines the word assassination as the “violent death given to a very important person because of his position or power”, which is consistent with what happened after having been an attempted attack on the life of the vice president of the Nation and one of the main political leaders of the entire South American country.
From the background and the Argentine criminal legislation, it can be deduced that those who committed or attempted to commit this crime would receive a life sentence, that is, 35 years in prison, plus permanent imprisonment, without the possibility of review.
The closest antecedent of assassination
One of the most present cases of assassination attempts were those suffered by former President Raúl Alfonsín, who is accounted for three particular events.
The first of all of them happened in May 1986, while Alfonsín was making a protocol visit to the command of the Third Army Corps, in Córdoba. Before the presidential delegation arrived, a suspicious element was seen that turned out to be a highly lethal explosive device that should have been activated when the president landed near the place.
However, the best known of the assassination attempts suffered by the former president was the one that occurred in the Buenos Aires city of San Nicolás on February 23, 1991. In the middle of a campaign rally, a man named Ismael Darío Abdalá tried to assassinate him by shooting him with a revolver
“Abdalá took out his weapon, fired, and the detonation covered Alfonsín’s voice. With the index finger of his right hand, the boy pressed the trigger, the hammer struck the ammunition and, nevertheless, the drum did not rotate. The bullet, that night, he was left without going to the target”, remembers a journalistic note about the fact.
Alfonsín’s guards reacted quickly and subdued the attacker, who was subsequently arrested and tried, declared innocent of mental insanity and admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
Argentina shocked in repudiation day after attack against Kirchner
Demonstrations throughout the territory of Argentina take place this Friday with an epicenter in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, in repudiation of the failed attack against the vice president accused of corruption Cristina Kirchner that left the country in a state of shock.
The attack with a firearm against Kirchner, perpetrated on Thursday night by a man who is being investigated if he acted alone, was considered by the president Alberto Fernandez as the most serious incident since the return to democracy in 1983.
The Pope Franciscoformer archbishop of Buenos Aires, expressed his “solidarity and closeness at this delicate moment” and said he prays that “social harmony and respect for democratic values always prevail,” the Vatican reported.
The attempted assassination was also repudiated by the main leaders of the opposition Together for Change (centre-right), such as the former president Mauricio Macri (2015-19) and the mayor of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
The governing coalition Frente de Todos (center-left Peronism) called for a march to the Plaza de Mayo “with the flag to defend democracy” on a day that was declared a national holiday.
“Cristina remains alive because for a reason that has not yet been technically confirmed, the weapon that had five bullets did not fire despite being triggered,” the president said in a midnight address.
Argentina has been in a stupor since Thursday night when a man, who was arrested, pointed at very close range and tried to shoot Kirchner’s face with a firearm at the door of his home in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, amid growing political polarization.
The attacker slipped into the crowd of militants who were waiting for her to express their solidarity with the former president (2007-15), in a demonstration that has been repeated every night since last August 22, the Prosecutor’s Office required twelve years in prison for her and perpetual political disqualification in a trial in which she is accused of fraud against the State and corruption.
before the justice
Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti and prosecutor Carlos Rivolo, in charge of the investigation labeled as attempted aggravated homicide, made an inspection on Friday morning in the area where the attack occurred. In court, the first statements were taken from witnesses as well as police officers and members of the custody of the 69-year-old vice president. Later, the magistrate went to Kirchner’s home to listen to her.
The federal police raided an apartment on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, which the attacker has been renting for eight months, according to the owner. Two boxes of 50 bullets each were found at the scene, a police source told the press.
The detainee, named Fernando André Sabag Montiel, 35, is of Brazilian nationality, with an Argentine mother and a Chilean father. He has lived in Argentina since 1993. He had been arrested on March 17, 2021 for carrying unconventional weapons, according to police sources cited by the official Télam news agency. The man has a Nazi symbol tattooed on his elbow, according to social media images of him.
Vigil and demonstrations
“We have just experienced one of the worst episodes in our history with the assassination attempt on Cristina Kirchner,” tweeted Axel Kicillof, governor of the province of Buenos Aires, the country’s largest district.
A vigil by a handful of militants has been held at the scene since the incident amid a heavy police presence that cordoned off the area.
At mid-morning, the protesters, called by political parties, unions, social movements and human rights organizations, began to gather in the main cities of the country, to march starting at noon.
“We were waiting for our beloved Cristina. And she just came down to greet everyone, like every night, to greet the people. And suddenly a stir was heard, and it was that guy who pointed it at her. They grabbed him, they ran him over here and I have this unfortunate man’s face nailed to my head,” Teresa, a woman who did not give her last name in front of the vice president’s home, told AFP at dawn.
Martín Frías, another 48-year-old Kirchner supporter, told AFP that with this fact “the enemy is better known, but the fight is not given up. It means taking greater precautions, but with the same convictions as always.”
The attack was repudiated by Latin American leaders and leaders and the Spanish head of government as well as the spokeswoman for the United Nations Human Rights Office, Ravina Shamdasani.
(With information from AFP)
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