L’pistol attacker of Argentine Vice President Cristina Kirchner two weeks ago, and his young companion, were both formally charged on Thursday with attempted premeditated aggravated homicide, and remanded in custody, according to the judge’s resolution investigator. Fernando Sabag Montiel, 35, was overpowered and arrested on the spot, when the shot had not fired, and his friend Brenda Uliarte, 23, was arrested three days later. The judge has not yet ruled on the fate of two of their acquaintances, a 21-year-old young woman and a 27-year-old young man, arrested this week.
Judge Maria Capuchetti will have to rule later on the fate of two acquaintances of the couple, a 21-year-old woman, Agustina Diaz, and a 27-year-old man, Nicolas Gabriel Carrizo, arrested this week. Cristina Kirchner, former head of state (2007-2015) and figurehead of the Peronist left, still influential, although very divisive, in Argentinian politics, was the victim of an attempted attack on September 1, when that she mingled with sympathizers who had come to support her at her home.
“Pre-planning and agreement”
The investigation, based largely on the analysis of the contents of the telephones of the suspects and those of their entourage, had established a “planning and prior agreement” between the two main suspects, of precarious status and without recent formal employment. Their motivations have not yet been clearly established and a marked politicization has not been proven at this stage concerning them either, even if certain exchanges of messages have shown clear hostility on the part of Brenda Uliarte towards Ms. Kirchner.
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The attack on the vice-president gave rise the next day to demonstrations bringing together tens of thousands of people in several cities in Argentina, and to a wave of international condemnation. Thursday, she spoke for the first time in public since the attack, saying her emotion to be “alive, thanks to God and the Virgin”, and evoking the support of Pope Francis, who had called her a few hours after the attack. “I feel that I am alive, thanks to God and to the Virgin, really”, she declared, her voice broken, in the Senate – of which she is president – where she received a group of priests and nuns who work in poor neighborhoods or “villas miserias”, slums.