A man has thrust a handgun straight into the face of the Argentine vice-president outside her home in what has been described as an ‘attempted assassination’.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was outside her residence in the capital Buenos Aires surrounded by a crowd when a man lunged out and brandished a firearm straight into her face.
Mercifully, the politician was not hurt and no shots were fired, but as you can tell from the video below – WARNING – it contains distressing scenes – she was absolutely terrified.
The President of Argentina Alberto Fernandez claims that the trigger was pulled but the gun failed to fire.
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He also said that the gun was loaded with five bullets.
Hundreds of people had gathered outside Ms Fernandez de Kircher’s home to offer her support as she faces charges of corruption, which she denies.
Police have stated that a man was arrested near to the scene, and a gun was also recovered just a few metres away from where the incident took place.
The man arrested has been identified in local media as a 35-year-old Brazilian man, who has been taken into custody.
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Police are working to establish a motive for the alleged assassination attempt.
Speaking to the public on Thursday night, President Fernandez said: "Cristina remains alive because, for a reason not yet technically confirmed, the gun, which contained five bullets, did not fire."
He criticised the actions of the gun-wielding man, claiming that the attack on his vice-president was one of the ‘most serious’ incidents that the country had witnessed since the return of constitutional rule and democracy following the end of dictatorship in 1983.
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Fernandez added: "We can disagree, we can have deep disagreements, but hate speech cannot take place because it breeds violence and there is no chance of violence coexisting with democracy.”
The president then later declared today a national holiday in Argentina, asking the Argentinian public to spend the day taking time to ‘express themselves in defence of life, democracy and in solidarity with our vice-president’.
The Argentine minister of economy Sergio Massa also condemned the incident, which he called an ‘attempted assassination’.
Massa tweeted: "When hate and violence prevail over debate, societies are destroyed and situations like these arise: attempted assassination.”
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Ms Fernandez de Kirchner is accused of defrauding the state and awarding public contracts fraudulently during her time as president between 2007 and 2015.
If convicted, she could face 12 years in prison and a lifetime ban from politics.
However, as the Senate president, she has parliamentary immunity and would not be imprisoned unless the sentence was ratified by the Supreme Court or if she loses her seat at the Senate in the next elections at the end of 2023.
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The verdict for her trial is expected to take months to be returned.
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Topics: World News, Politics, Crime
Tom Wood