A man identified as 35-year-old Fernando Andres Sabag Montiel was arrested late Thursday evening after apparently attempting to assassinate the vice president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
The incident occurred outside of Fernández de Kirchner’s residence in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires as the vice president returned home. Fernández de Kirchner was reportedly unharmed, as the gun failed to fire when the assailant pulled the trigger.
The incident occurred in the context of a greater political scandal in which Fernández de Kirchner – a hardened leftist and ex-president herself with close ties to the repressive communist regimes of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba – is facing 12 years in prison on multiple charges of corruption. Prosecutors alleged that Fernández de Kirchner used public works projects to amass a fortune in tax dollars and launder illicit profits, a claim she has vehemently denied.
Fernández de Kirchner has also long been implicated in the 2015 death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in January of that year the day before he was scheduled to present his findings to Congress implicating Fernández de Kirchner in an attempt to cover up Iran’s role in the deadliest terror attack in the nation’s history. Police found a draft arrest warrant for the then-president, Fernández de Kirchner, in Nisman’s trash.
Current Argentine socialist President Alberto Fernández (no relation) appeared to threaten Diego Luciani, the prosecutor working on Fernández de Kirchner’s current criminal case, last month, saying in a televised interview, “What happened [to Nisman] was a suicide … I hope something like that doesn’t happen to prosecutor Luciani.”
As journalists were following Fernández de Kirchner home from official business in the Argentine Senate, the alleged assassination attempt was caught on video. Reports indicate that the firearm used allegedly “jammed” as the assailant attempted to fire it at point-blank range:
Police announced the arrest of one man, the Brazilian-Argentine Sabag, following the incident. According to Argentina’s Clarín newspaper, Sabag has been living in Argentina since 1993 and is a prolific social media user, though he did not present a coherent ideology in his declarations. Clarín reported that the suspect maintained Instagram and Facebook profiles and appeared to seek out television appearances for “man on the street”-style interviews. Sabag had been openly critical of Fernández de Kirchner, though in one interview proclaims, “neither Milei nor Cristina,” referring to prominent libertarian economist and lawmaker Javier Milei, indicating that Sabag is not a conservative.
Milei, who rose to prominence through academic lectures and television analysis, has organized a libertarian coalition against the establishment that swept last year’s legislative elections and has significantly weakened the nation’s establishment center-right. Milei is a consistent presence at the top of Argentine presidential election polls.
Clarín also indicated that some evidence surrounding Sabag may suggest fascist or Nazi inclinations, such as a variety of “Viking” and Nordic tattoos and one tattoo featuring “iconography used by the notorious SS, the criminal squadron that served Adolf Hitler.”
Police raided Sabag’s home shortly after the incident and reportedly found two cases of 100 bullets, but reportedly no other suspicious materials at press time.
President Fernández condemned the alleged assault in a nationally televised speech in which he also declared a national holiday on Friday in support of his vice president. Fernández described the attempt, which resulted in no injuries, as “the gravest [attack] that has occurred since we recovered our democracy,” referring to the Argentine military dictatorship of the 1980s. Fernández apparently placed the gravity of Thursday’s event above the 1992 bombing that Fernández de Kirchner was accused of covering up – the bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), which left 85 people dead – and of the death of Alberto Nisman shortly before formally presenting his findings linking Fernández de Kirchner to an Iranian government cover-up of that bombing.
Fernández also repeatedly condemned alleged political “hate speech” and urged Argentines to reject “stigmatizing words,” despite authorities not at press time revealing any evidence that “hate speech” against Fernández de Kirchner inspired her assailant.
“We can dissent, we can have profound disagreements, but in a democratic society, speech that promotes hate cannot have a place because it engenders violence and there is no possibility that violence coexists with democracy,” Fernández (the president) proclaimed.
Fernández declared a national holiday on Friday, baffling some observers. The governors of at least two provinces, Mendoza and Jujuy, announced shortly thereafter that they would not respect Fernández’s declaration of a national holiday and ordered Argentines to return to work as normal. Public services such as transport and government offices in those provinces will also reportedly operate normally.
“Today all should work normally, which is the best way to repudiate any expression of violence and adhere to social peace,” the official government of Mendoza province said in a statement.
Both governments are under the rule of the Radical Civic Union, a centrist “social democrat” party.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.