Tens of thousands of supporters of Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner took to the streets on Friday to express their support for her after she was the victim of an attempted attack for which a Brazilian citizen remains in detention.
The Plaza de Mayo was filled with demonstrators from the ruling Frente de Todos who, carrying Argentine flags, showed their support for the former president (2007-2015), who the day before was saved from being shot to death near her home in Buenos Aires.
Trade unionists and leaders of social organizations, as well as families with children, also gathered.
The Argentine authorities are investigating whether the Brazilian Fernando André Sabag Montiel acted on his own or following orders when he tried the day before with a Bersa pistol against the vice president, one of the main political figures in the country.
Until now, it is known that the detainee is a street vendor and has lived in the country for decades, a Security Ministry official told The Associated Press who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to provide information about the attack.
“There is no confirmed hypothesis” about whether he acted alone or was sent by someone, so “everything is a matter of investigation,” said the official.
The event, which occurred on Thursday night in the vicinity of the building where the former president resides in Buenos Aires, has generated a great commotion.
For more than two decades Fernández de Kirchner has been a central figure in Argentine politics, where she has served as legislator, president for two consecutive terms and now vice president. The waters of her are divided between those who admire her for considering that her governments conquered civil rights and guaranteed social policies in favor of the impoverished sectors and those who describe her as a demagogue and corrupt.
The 35-year-old Brazilian was arrested on Thursday night after pointing a firearm at the vice president near his home in what President Alberto Fernández described as an attack that was foiled because the gun did not go off.
The detainee has lived in Argentina since 1998 and the police found a kitchen knife during a search of his car on the streets of the capital in 2021. But he has no criminal record. Images of the Brazilian obtained from his social networks – now inactive – and broadcast by the local media show him posing with his hands and arms full of tattoos that, according to social network users, are associated with Nazi symbology.
The weapon he wielded is a Bersa 380 “capable of firing and operating normally… two boxes with bullets of the same caliber were found during the search of his home,” said a judicial official investigating the incident – labeled as an attempt to homicide- and who asked not to be identified for the same reason as the previous one.
The Brazilian did not have authorization to carry the Bersa, which was illegal, Gabriel González Da Silva, of the Specialized Fiscal Unit for the Investigation of Illicit Firearms, Explosives and other Controlled Materials, told the AP.
The detainee is undergoing medical tests before being questioned.
Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti was in charge of taking a witness statement from the vice president at her home.
Senator Oscar Parrilli, one of the men closest to Fernández de Kirchner, told reporters that “Cristina is shocked and shocked” but “her spirit and temper are intact, and in this sense she is fine.”
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“I wish to express my solidarity and closeness at this delicate moment.” Pope Francisco