The federal justice received this Monday the results of an expert report that determined the discovery of Fernando André Sabag Montiel’s DNA in the 32-caliber Bersa pistol that was seized in the same place where he was detained last week, after he tried to shoot Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
The confirmation definitively distances the versions that questioned the reconstruction of the event and that affirmed that the kidnapped weapon was not the one seen in the videos in the hands of the attacker.
The information was confirmed by investigative sources, who detailed that the traces appear on the trigger, the charger and the handle, so the expert opinion became one more element (regardless of the photos and videos) that confirms that it was Sabag Montiel who wielded the weapon.
The confirmation that it was his hand that was carrying the weapon had already been achieved, moreover, through an analysis of the tattoos that can be seen in the video of the day of the event, in comparison with those that can be seen in the photos that the defendant had uploaded on social networks in recent years.
The information was added to other elements that were incorporated this Monday to the investigation that remains under summary secrecywhile federal judge María Eugenia Capuchetti and prosecutor Carlos Rívolo are expected to take an investigative statement from Brenda “Ámbar” Uliarte, the aggressor’s girlfriend, something that would happen tomorrow.
Official defender Juan Martín Hermida went to that place of detention this Monday to meet with her.
Judicial sources confirmed to Télam that after the meeting, Hermida excused herself from exercising her defense because the defendant has “opposing interests” with the main defendant, Sabag Montiel, whom she already represents.
Gustavo Kollman will be the woman’s lawyer, the spokesmen indicated.
Although not all the elements of evidence that were gathered in relation to Uliarte are yet known, Télam was able to confirm that one fundamental element was that The investigators managed to locate her on the day of the event in the vicinity of the Vice President’s house and believe that she may have collaborated with the aggressor..
Meanwhile, judicial sources reported that investigators are analyzing alternatives to try to recover information from Sabag Montiel’s phone, which was reset while it was available to the Capuchetti court, while the judge could order an expert opinion to see what triggered the error that put a key piece of evidence at risk.
Sources in the case informed Télam that prosecutor Rívolo proposed carrying out a “expertise of the expertise” to be able to fully understand what happened and prove what would have been a technical failure.
In parallel, the researchers showed this Monday confident in being able to recover part of the content of the defendant’s cell phone, especially after having learned of similar cases in which their colleagues were able to overcome the inconvenience and recover valuable data, sources of the investigation told this agency.
Sabag Montiel’s phone was formatted when an attempt was made to extract information, although it is still unclear how this situation occurred or if it is attributable to those who had the cell phone in their custody or to those who manipulated it..
The phone was seized by the Argentine Federal Police the night of the attack on the vice president and immediately He was put in a “Faraday bag” to guarantee his protection and be taken to the court that intervened in the case, according to what the Minister of Security, Aníbal Fernández, told this Monday morning.
Under these conditions, the telephone was taken to Judge Capuchetti’s court, where the receipt was signed and it was clarified that the chain of custody had been respected: since then it has been under the control of the court.
Judicial sources reported over the weekend that technicians from the Federal Police were summoned at dawn on Friday to try to extract the information from the defendant’s cell phone with the technology available to that force.
The same spokesmen assured that The technicians who manipulated the cell phone did so in front of court personnel who were informed of each of the steps that were taken – and that the result of that extraction was “negative”: it is suspected that it was in these attempts in which would have caused the error.
In the hands of the court, the phone was kept in an open envelope in the court’s safe, until the judge decided to send it to the headquarters of the Airport Security Police (PSA) in Ezeiza, after learning that they had technology there. latest.
The transfer of the cell phone was carried out by the personal custody of Judge Capuchetti and during the middle of the journey in the car a secretary of the court also traveled, according to what Télam was able to reconstruct from judicial sources.
The phone arrived at the PSA on Friday at 11 p.m. and was received by an officer who belongs to the Forensic Analysis office, from custody personnel of the Criminal and Correctional Court 5, along with a judicial official letter, an open envelope, without a form chain of custody, as can be deduced from the reception certificate made by that force.
There it was also pointed out that the phone was turned on with a startup error, and with the SIM and memory cards removed from the slot and attached to the back of the device with adhesive tape.
After receiving the phone in these conditions, from the PSA they contacted the court to account for it and the response they received was to move forward with the technical work, sources in the case said.
The information that could be obtained was that which was stored in the SIM and on the memory cardconfirmed the judicial sources, who hoped to obtain more data through the queries they had already made to Samsung, the manufacturer of the device under analysis.
