Argentina’s vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has survived an assassination attempt after a man tried to shoot her at point-blank range outside her home.
Dramatic video broadcast on TV showed Ms Fernández de Kirchner exiting her vehicle surrounded by supporters when a man is seen extending his hand with what looks like a pistol. The vice-president ducks as people around the apparent gunman appear stunned at what is unfolding.
The pistol almost touches the vice-president’s face during the attack outside her home in an upmarket area of the capital Buenos Aires. But the assassination attempt was thwarted when the assailant’s handgun jammed and he was quickly overpowered by her security officers.
President Alberto Fernández, who is not related to the vice-president, said the pistol did not discharge when the man tried to fire it.
“A man pointed a firearm at her head and pulled the trigger,” the president said in a national broadcast following last night’s incident. He said the firearm was loaded with five bullets but “didn’t fire even though the trigger was pulled.”The alleged gunman was identified as Fernando Andre Sabag Montiel, a Brazilian citizen, according to an official at the Security Ministry. He does not have a criminal record, the official said, adding that the weapon was a .32-caliber Bersa.
Ms Fernández de Kirchner, who herself is a former president, did not appear to have suffered any injury.
President Fernández called it “the most serious incident since we recovered democracy” in 1983 after a military dictatorship and urged political leaders, and society at large, to repudiate the attempted shooting.
#RT @eldiario: #1Sep | Detuvieron a un sujeto por apuntar con un arma a Cristina Kirchner, vicepresidenta de Argentina, cuando ingresaba a su casa.
— TweetNoticias (@TweetNoti) September 2, 2022
🎥: @BonelliOKpic.twitter.com/zwcqTXHR0R
Gina De Bai, a witness who was near the vice president during the incident, told The Associated Press she heard “the sound of the trigger being pulled.”
She said she did not realise it was a handgun until the man was rushed by security personnel.
The attack came as the vice-president is facing a trial for alleged acts of corruption during her 2007-2015 presidency - charges that she vehemently denies and that have led her supporters to surround her home in the Recoleta neighbourhood of the capital.
The president declared today a holiday “so the Argentine people can, in peace and harmony, express itself in defence of life, democracy and in solidarity with our vice-president.”
