Argentina: This is how the attempted assassination of Cristina Fernández was organized

They talked for months and through various means of assassinating the vice president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. They hated her. They carried out espionage tasks in the surroundings of her house. They even tried to rent a house in the same area to keep a close eye on her and have a better chance of killing her.

They are Fernando Sabag Montiel and Brenda Uliarte, the couple who have already been prosecuted for the assassination attempt in which Agustina Díaz and Gabriel Nicolás Carrizo are also involved, explains journalist Cecilia González for RT.

The four are the first detainees in a complex legal case that has ‘cinematographic edges’ and in which the main characters of Argentine politics, far-right organizations, an alleged «gang of the copitos», suspicious neighbors and many doubts about the mysterious financing of a failed operation, that could have completely changed the history of the South American country, coexist.

The case began the night of September 1, when Sabag Montiel shot Fernández de Kirchner twice while she was greeting militants gathered outside her house in Buenos Aires. But, the bullet did not come out.

Two weeks later, the investigation led by Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti and Prosecutor Carlos Rívolo points out that Sabag Montiel was the material author because all the evidence shows that he was the one who fired the shot; that he organized the attack together with Uliarte, his girlfriend; that Díaz knew and encouraged the assassination plans; and that Carrizo may have coordinated the entire plan.

The ‘efforts’ by the media and partisan opposition, which, from the beginning, launched various theories trying to minimize the attempted assassination, have also been foiled. First they said that the attack had not occurred and that it was a «staging» orchestrated by the Government. They later claimed that he was «a loose nut» who aspired to his «15 minutes of fame» and had used «a water pistol». And in the end, they said it was just a group of «lumpen» without much political significance.

Today, it is known that the gun was real, that Sabag did not act alone and that the attack was organized by different people. But there are still several loose ends to be tied, in particular, to find out whether or not someone paid for the vice president to be killed.Profiles

On September 1, minutes after the attack, Sabag Montiel was arrested. The evidence was overwhelming. The militants who were next to him saw how he drew his gun and fired. Several videos also left a record of his actions.

It was then learned that he had been born in Brazil, to an Argentine mother and a Chilean father, was 35 years old but had lived in Buenos Aires since he was six. Social media photos of him showed that he had Nazi symbols tattooed on his body. He liked to appear on television, so whenever he saw a camera on the street, he approached to try to be interviewed, so that he could give his opinion on current issues like any other citizen.

When searching his house – located in the neighborhood of Villa del Parque – the police found rooms full of garbage. With a lot of dirt and evident signs of neglect, but also with bullets and cartridges.

There, he lived with his girlfriend, a 23-year-old girl named Brenda Uliarte with whom he appeared on television in mid-August, in one of those street interviews that he was looking for so much.

She appeared as a seller of cotton candy, a popular candy that in Argentina is known as «copito». In an apparent class contradiction, she defended the rich and reviled migrants and people who were beneficiaries of social plans. They liked her right-wing speech so much that later, she was invited to the studio of the channel.

On September 2, one day after the attack, she was on TV again, but this time to defend her boyfriend.

She was accompanied by Sergio Orozco, Leonardo Volpintesta, Miguel Angel Castro Riglos, Lucas Acevedo and Gabriel Nicolás Carrizo. They said that they were only street vendors of «copitos», that they had nothing to do with the attack and were not accomplices of Sabag Montiel, who was threatening them.

Carrizo introduced himself as the leader of the group, since he was the owner of the equipment with which they made the treats.

Revelations

After the interview, Uliarte was active on social networks. Live, she criticized corruption, she spoke of her relationship with Sabag Montiel and assured that she «only» had carried a toy gun. She also posted the video in which far-right deputy Javier Milei repudiated the holiday that President Alberto Fernández had decreed as a way to condemn the assassination attempt.

On Sunday, September 5, members of the Federal Police detained her at a train station, after investigators discovered that she had lied when she stated that she had not seen her boyfriend for several days. The most incriminating elements were the videos from television and security cameras that showed that, on the day of the attack, she had gone together with Sabag Montiel to the vice president’s house.

When they captured her, Uliarte had already dyed her hair blonde. Investigators believe that she planned to escape.

Her father, Leonardo Uliarte, came out to defend her in the media. He said that he was an «ultra-Kirchnerist», that she should not de arrested because she was «retarded». That she had had a very difficult life that included sexual abuse when she was a child, being abandoned by her mother, being raised by a grandmother whom she had to take care of when both her legs were amputated. And that at 21 she became a mother, but the baby died a week after being born.

In recent times, the young woman offered sexual content on a well-known platform, for which her father blamed her boyfriend.

At that time, the case had been complicated by a scandalous oversight by the Federal Police that allowed Sabag Montiel’s cell phone to be reset, fearing the loss of valuable information. In any case, photographs were rescued in which he and his girlfriend posed separately with the weapon used in the attack. It was another piece of evidence against both of them.

But what really became an ‘explosive mine’ of data was Uliarte’s phone.The chats against Fernández

Dialogues were found on the young woman’s cell phone that showed that she and Sabag Montiel began to talk about the attack against Fernández as early as April of this year. and that the young woman was the one who obtained a 32-caliber Bersa pistol.

They made a first attempt on the night of August 27, in the midst of the mobilizations that Fernández de Kirchner’s militants carried out daily in front of her house to support her after prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola requested a 12-year jail sentence against her. But the former president got into her house before they managed to get close to her.

«The issue is that there is a C5N camera and there are few people, people are leaving and that is the moment, now it is too late (…) later we will see on TV to see what happened because when she got inside, they followed her and that’s where it should have been. She [the vice president] is upstairs but I don’t think she’s going out, so she’s already gone», say the chats.

According to sources in the court case, these phrases prove that they were waiting for the right moment to commit the attack. In addition, there are recordings that show that both attended the demonstrations outside Fernández de Kirchner’s house several times. Supposedly they were going to sell the «copitos«, but the investigators believe that, in reality, they were carrying out intelligence work to monitor the movements of the people and the vice president, so as to kill her.

In their communications, they also discuss the possibility of renting an apartment in front of Fernández’s to be able to spy on her.

«We work this week and on Saturday we go and leave a deposit [advance]. High class apartment in Recoleta love, if you saw where Cristina lives you understand, Cristina lives in Recoleta, we are very close to her. Yes, we have to go and give it to her full with a ‘corchazo’ (bullet). Do you know what it takes? A sniper, you saw that she likes to be on the balcony, it is necessary there and pimba, a shot in the head, just take her down … «, wrote the young woman on August 23, when the massive mobilizations in favor of the vice president were taking place.

The strange thing is that Recoleta is one of the richest and most expensive areas of the capital, so, due to their socioeconomic conditions, the couple could not have paid rent. That is why the possibility of an unknown financier began to be investigated. In this effort, the judge has already requested the review of the bank accounts of Sabag Montiel and Uliarte to find out if they had suspicious deposits.More people involved and charged

Other crucial messages in the cause are those that Uliarte had with a friend whom he had registered as «love of my life» and to whom he warned: «I ordered Cristina to be killed, she did not come out because she got in», he wrote to her on August 27, the day of the first assassination attempt.

Since July, she had told him that she would go to a protest at the Casa Rosada. “I go with the iron [the pistol] and I will shoot Cristina. I have the ovaries to do it». She even sent him a picture of her posing with the gun.

The friend’s name is Agustina Díaz, she is 21 years old and on Tuesday she was arrested and charged as an alleged accomplice. Although she initially denied any link to the attack, the phone chats gave her away.

«Che, but how was the shot missed? How did you send that moron? Did he not practice before or did the adrenaline of the moment fail him? Where are you? Wouldn’t it be convenient for you to go home? You have to get rid of the cell phone. And change the number. Delete your account. Everything”, Díaz wrote to Uriarte a day after the attack.

He had already confirmed to her before: «Who wouldn’t want to kill that chorra (thief)». In his first court statement, he assured that he never believed that Uliarte was capable of fulfilling his «fantasies».

His situation was complicated after Public Television discovered that, contrary to what he had said, Díaz was in the demonstrations in front of the vice president’s house, at least the day before the attack.

She became the third suspect arrested. And then there were four.

On Wednesday afternoon, it was the turn of Gabriel Nicolás Carrizo, the 27 year old who, after the attempted murder, appeared on television together with Uliarte and said that he was the leader of the vendors whom the press had already baptized as «the band of the copitos».

Until now, the specific reasons for his capture have not come to light, but his animosity towards the government was revealed a couple of hours after the attack.

«Surely the next one will be you, Alberto! Be careful! The Government is vulnerable, and I hope it is clear to them (…) We are the ones who keep these parasites up there, they are going to judge a person who would be doing the entire Argentine Nation a great favor“, he threatened in his WhatsApp status .Fernández’s neighbor

Fernández de Kirchner has a famous neighbor. Her name is Ximena de Tezanos Pinto, and she also is a defender of the last military dictatorship and began to become famous for hanging flags or messages against the vice president. The influential anti-Kirchnerist press began to interview her more and more often so that she would revile her.

After the attack, it was discovered that Tezanos Pinto rents rooms in her house. And one of her tenants is Gladys Egui, a lawyer for Leonardo Sosa and Gastón Guerra, leaders of the Federal Revolution, an extremist group that months ago began harassing Peronist officials in the streets and calling for the «death» of Fernández de Kirchner.

The organization became known in May for bringing a wooden guillotine to Plaza de Mayo to promote the execution of the former president. Months later, Uliarte, the young woman who had already been prosecuted for the assassination attempt, participated in one of her violent protests.

On August 28, four days before the attack, Sosa and Guerra posted photos from the balcony of Fernández de Kirchner’s neighbor. It is suspected that they took the opportunity to do espionage work.

That same week, other members of the Federal Revolution confirmed, in a live broadcast on Twitter, their desire to kill the former president. They also included her son, Deputy Máximo Kirchner, and President Alberto Fernández.

Now, they are all being investigated by the Justice system.