President Alberto Fernandez on Friday criticised the "singular slowness" of Argentina's justice system regarding the criminal investigation into the attempted assassination of Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, committed one year ago.
Three people are currently in custody awaiting trial, but trial proceedings are not underway.
"The judicial case advanced with singular slowness," Fernández said in a post on the social network X (formerly Twitter) marking the anniversary of the attack, which he described as "an event of enormous transcendence that generated a great social commotion and altered democratic coexistence.”
On September 1, 2022, Fernando Sabag Montiel, armed with a pistol, mingled with a group of the vice-president’s supporters in front of Fernández de Kirchner's apartment in Recoleta. The former president survived after the gun brandished by the assailant failed to fire.
When the incident took place, Fernández de Kichner was standing trial in a corruption case, for which she was later sentenced to six years in prison and disqualification from running for political office, a sentence she has appealed and which she attributes to persecution against her.
Sabag Montiel, 35, and his girlfriend Brenda Uliarte, 23, are accused as co-perpetrators of "double homicide aggravated by premeditated intent and by the premeditated concurrence of two or more persons, aggravated by the use of a firearm, in the degree of attempt.”
Nicolás Carrizo, 27, who employed the couple as street vendors, is charged as a "necessary participant" in the attempted assassination.
The court overseeing the trial against them is awaiting the appointment of its three full judges to set a trial date.
In February, a federal appeals court rejected Fernández de Kirchner's request seeking the recusal of the lead judge in the case, María Eugenia Capuchetti.
President Fernández said in his message that the court investigation had left out "decisive evidence for the investigation and delayed any enquiry that would allow us to know who were the instigators and intellectual authors of the act.”
Fernández de Kirchner has called on judicial authorities to identify the alleged masterminds and financiers of the attack. The vice-president has asked for more evidence to be collected and believes the attack is linked to sectors of the opposition, including Juntos por el Cambio national deputy Gerardo Milman.
This week, Uliarte's lawyer, Carlos Telleldín, announced that his client will testify in court that individuals who came to harass Fernández de Kirchner at the door of her apartment building were the recipients of money from officials of the Buenos Aires City government, led by opposition mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
Fernández de Kirchner also wants the courts to further investigate alleged ties between the leaders of the fringe political group Revolución Federal, the detainees and individuals close to former president Mauricio Macri that she says have not been fully explored.
– TIMES/AFP
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