The fourth arrested for the attempted murder of Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández appeared before a judge today, Friday, to testify on the suspicion that he was aware of the planning of the attack, which would have begun five months ago, and which involved the evaluation of different alternatives to carry it out.
Gastón Marano, lawyer for the defendant Nicolás Gabriel Carrizo, told reporters that his client “is not a murderer” and “had no idea of the criminal intent” of those who have been identified as co-authors of the attempted murder of the vice president: Fernando Sabag Montiel and his girlfriend, Brenda Uliarte, both under arrest.
He said that Carrizo only maintains a “commercial link” with the two defendants from his work as a producer of sugar flakes that he sold to them.
Cristina Fernández’s assassination attempt occurred on September 1 while she was greeting supporters near her home in Buenos Aires. Sabag Montiel, 35, pulled the trigger twice with his Bersa pistol just inches from Fernandez’s head. The gun had five bullets in it, but none were chambered and the bullet did not come out, according to police.
According to the investigators, Uliarte, who was a few meters from his partner at the time of the attack, would have played a leading role in his planning, according to the messages he sent through his mobile phone to several people, including to her friend Agustina Díaz, the third detained in the investigation process.
Carrizo, 27, was arrested two days ago when he appeared in court to retrieve his cell phone, which he had voluntarily surrendered when he was a witness in the case.
The cell phone was analyzed by the investigators, who found that on his WhatsApp account the young man had written after Sabag Montiel’s arrest: “The government is vulnerable, and I hope it is clear to them […] They are going to judge a person who would be doing a great favor to the entire Argentine nation.”
Carrizo also referred to President Alberto Fernández: “Surely the next one will be you, Alberto! Be careful!” the message read.
During the next few years, the magistrate must define the legal situation of Díaz and Carrizo. One day after the events, the latter was interviewed by a television channel together with Uliarte and other members of the group of sugar flake vendors, and they distanced themselves from the attack.
The suspects maintain very critical positions towards Fernández, openly exposed on social networks. Uliarte has participated in marches against the government of President Alberto Fernández and organized by far-right groups.
According to the judge’s resolution, what happened on September 1 constituted “the final chapter of the criminal plan” that both “had previously agreed, designed and studied.”
The plan would have started on April 22, when the young woman acquired the pistol to carry out the attack. In July, Uliarte told Díaz of his intention to shoot Fernández in a message from his cell phone.
“I go with the iron and I shoot Cristina… they give me the ovaries to do it… the issue is how, because the old woman has security,” said the woman according to the court decision.
For the judge, this means that by then Uliarte had already made the decision to attack Fernández, “thus starting the course of the plan, which only had to define the circumstances of the manner, time and place of its execution, which occurred later based on the intelligence that both she and Sabag Montiel carried out in the days prior to the attack.
Photographs of Uliarte handling the same pistol used by Sabag Montiel were also included in the indictment.
Associated Press/OnCuba.
