Fernando Sabag Montiel He hasn’t received his lawyer for five months – he doesn’t want to see him -, he has no visitors and he no longer accepts interviews by psychologists who evaluate his mental health. From prison, where he is imprisoned for the attempted murder of Cristina Kirchner, he sends letters with unfeasible requests and gave a telephone interview to C5N in which he said that he had acted alone and that he did not regret it.
As a consequence of this, the federal prosecutor Carlos Rivolowho is in charge of the cause of the attack, asked that Sabag Montiel’s communications be restricted. “Given the institutional seriousness of the facts that are the object of this investigation, and with the exclusive purpose of preserving his safety, I will have to suggest to the Court that it order to restrict the communications that the detainee receives in the prison establishment, to his defense and/or relatives specifically authorized by him,” Rívolo asked Maria Eugenia Capuchetti in a document you accessed THE NATION. Capuchetti has just been confirmed as the judge in this case, but she keeps the investigation delegated to the prosecutor.
For Rívolo, limiting the defendant’s communications would be the most consistent with the measures that the judge “has been successively ordering” regarding Sabag Montiel, whom he always kept under strict control to guarantee his safety.
Last Tuesday, Capuchetti also took action after C5N presented the interview: he asked the Federal Penitentiary Service for a detailed report on the detainee’s situation. The response -of four paragraphs- relates that Sabag Montiel arrived at the Ezeiza prison on September 28 and that since then he has been “housed in the Continuous Observation Area (AOC), in cell No. 01 dependent on the Men’s Psychiatric Service”.
He says that since his arrival “the staff of the Special Rapid Intervention Group (GERI) was appointed in order to supervise all kinds of movement that is carried out towards the inmate” and “safeguard” his “psychophysical integrity.” Also, that the sector in which Sabag is “has video surveillance cameras with permanent monitoring.” In cell number 1, he has a bed with a fireproof mattress, a “wall locker” for his “personal items” and “anti-vandal sink and toilet.”
According to the report, in the Sabag Montiel sector there is a multipurpose room that has “a landline phone to make and receive calls.” However, in the two letters that he wrote from prison and that are incorporated into the legal case, Sabag Montiel provided a telephone number. They called that number from C5N, they take it for granted in the courts, although none of that communication is recorded in the file. The telephone number that the defendant wrote in his two letters is an official number, they told THE NATION in Commodore Py. The SPF report also states that any prison agent who deals with Sabag Montiel must “sign a confidentiality act.” He also reports that “intervention” was given to the “areas of psychiatry and occupational therapy” to assist him, and that of “Education” to determine what his instruction is and “also provide recreational tools.”
This report – in total, one and a half pages – did not satisfy the judge, who insisted on a new request on Friday.
Regarding Rívolo’s proposal, before deciding whether to restrict Sabag Montiel’s communications, Capuchetti requested an opinion from the parties. Everything indicates that his official defender, Juan Martin Hermidawill oppose.
The last time Sabag Montiel received his official defender was last Octoberthe month after the attack. Since then, she not only refused to meet him; he also refused to be interviewed by the psychologist sent by the defense attorney. He made it known that he would not receive anyone related to the defense.
Given the importance of the case, Hermida sent a letter to her boss, the General Defender of the Nation, Stella Maris Martínez, asking her for instructions. She replied that she had to go ahead because the public defense system does not enable the defendant to choose their defense attorney unless there is a “serious conflict between the two that objectively assessed affects the right of those who are subjected to a judicial process to have a effective technical assistance” that represents you. “Circumstance -said the general defender- that is not noticed in the present”.
Sabag intends, according to his letters, to defend him Diego Luciani, the prosecutor who accused Cristina Kirchner in the Vialidad case and who got her sentenced to six years in prison. It was to him that she addressed the letter of March 3 last. The last one, from last Tuesday, is addressed to the “Federal Criminal Oral Chamber number 2 in charge of judges Andrés Basso, Jorge Gorini y Rodrigo Gimenez Uriburu” -the judges who sentenced the vice president-, and he asks them to “recuse Judge Capuchetti and take up the case”. All orders procedurally impossible.