Prosecutor Carlos Rívolo requested the closure of the investigation of the case that investigated the attack against Cristina Kirchner and that Fernando Sabag Montiel, Brenda Uliarte and Nicolás Carrizo be sent to oral trial accused of attempted aggravated homicide by the use of a firearm and premeditation.
The representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office maintained that there are no elements that support the idea of political financing behind the attack and criticized the actions of the vice president's custody.
Last December, Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti prosecuted Nicolás Gabriel Carrizo as a secondary participant in the crime of qualified homicide, aggravated by the use of firearms, treachery and premeditation, in the degree of attempt.
That resolution was known shortly after the judge prosecuted Fernando Sabag Montiel and Brenda Uliarte, for designing and carrying out a "criminal plan" to "assassinate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner."
The couple was prosecuted for being co-authors of "qualified homicide, aggravated by the use of firearms, treachery and the premeditated contest of two or more people, in the degree of attempt."
As there were no appeals on these last two prosecutions, they were firm and in a position to move on to the next instance: their elevation to trial. It happened that in the course of these months, Cristina tried to remove the judge on two occasions and until those issues are resolved, the court did not close the investigation.
But the Federal Court of Buenos Aires, which supervises the work of the federal investigating judges, requested that progress be made towards the next instance, understanding that the instruction was concluded regarding those responsible for the attack against the vice president and that in addition, the three responsible are detained.
In that context, the opinion of the prosecutor was sought. In its 197-page opinion, all the evidence gathered was analyzed, concluding that the case should be elevated to oral and public trial.
At the time of analyzing the situation, the investigation stage that focuses on the three young people arrested and prosecuted, Sabag Montiel, Uliarte and Carrizo, was considered completed. The prosecutor understood that there are no elements to attribute the financing of the attack to a political space, contradicting the vice president's statement that a political motive should be investigated in this case.
"All the information analyzed, including that of the Office of the Prosecutor for Money Laundering (PROCELAC) shows that those named did not receive during the two years prior to the attack any sum of money that would make it presume that they had been financed to carry out an act like the one investigated here," the request for elevation to trial indicated.
On repeated occasions, Cristina's defense insisted on the political intent of the attack, noting that it must investigate "those who were behind the attackers" financing the attack. The court found no evidence to support this criterion.
In rejecting any external financing – from an opposition political space – for the attack to materialize, the prosecutor went on to explain: "All the transfers and income analyzed are absolutely correlated with the informal activities that those named carried out to survive."
Along the same lines, Rívolo indicated that all the evidence incorporated into the case "prevents considering that there has been an organization of any kind, political party or partisan, person or group of people who have, in some way, financed, planned, covered up or contributed in any way with the accused to carry out the act investigated."
Without ignoring the "undoubted political commotion generated by the attempted assassination of a Vice President of the Nation, a fact of enormous institutional gravity," the prosecutor's office remarks, "of all the telephones seized and analyzed, no link emerged of those named with any group or person that at this point even allowed to suspect about the possibility that they had been given assistance for the event. "
In the punctuation of the analyzed evidence on the basis of which financing was ruled out as well as a political motive in the attempted homicide, the prosecutor added that "no relevant elements have been found in the telephone crossings, nor in the geolocation of the devices and, as we saw in detail, neither in their financial movements."
For this reason, it was clarified that the activity deployed by the Sabag Montiel, Uliarte and Carrizo, "to carry out the attack did not require, due to its characteristics, economic financing or extraordinary resources."
The role of custody
Regarding the facts under investigation, a particular analysis was made of the behavior of the custody of the vice president.
The custody operation "as it was carried out and beyond what is the subject of the criminal (in the related case) and administrative investigations, failed to deter, warn or prevent the criminal activity deployed by Sabag Montiel against the Vice President of the Nation," explained prosecutor Rívolo.
The sequences recorded by the videos provided by the witnesses also show how, once the shooting attempt occurred, "the demonstrators engage in a struggle with Sabag Montiel, who is seen mixed in the crowd, wearing a dark-colored cap."
The representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office recalled that it was two militants who "apprehended (Sabag Montiel) to make him available to police personnel and kept the weapon at the scene." It wasn't custody.
The inaction of the Federal Police personnel dedicated to the care and protection of Cristina Kirchner made it possible for Sabag Montiel, "with the contributions of Uliarte and Carrizo -as will be analyzed below- to carry out his criminal plan until the end, by pulling the trigger with the firearm, perfectly suitable for producing shots, with the intention of killing the victim. design that did not achieve concreter".
