Argentina’s Vice President, Cristina Fernández, escaped assassination outside her home on Thursday night after the assassin’s gun misfired and got locked.
President Alberto Fernández said in a national broadcast on Friday that a man has been arrested.
President Fernández said the suspect was quickly overpowered by the VP’s security officers after the pistol did not discharge when the man tried to fire it.
“A man pointed a firearm at her head and pulled the trigger. The firearm was loaded with five bullets but didn’t fire even though the trigger was pulled,” the President said.
He added that the vice president did not suffer any injury as the man was “immediately overpowered within seconds as he stood among a crowd of her supporters.”
The gunman was identified as Fernando André Sabag Montiel, said to be a Brazilian citizen while the weapon was a .32-caliber Bersa.
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An official at the Argentine Security Ministry said the suspect does not have a criminal record.
The attack came as the vice president who was the president between 2007 to 2015, is facing a trial for alleged acts of corruption during her presidency.
Though she has vehemently denied the charges, the opposition has continued to call for her removal while she has been getting death threats forcing her supporters to surround her home in the upscale Recoleta neighborhood of Argentina’s capital.
