Argentina's President Says VP Assailants Planned To Attack Him

"The conversations of the accused became known and they were talking about the failed attempt against Cristina and that the next one is me," said the President to the Spanish channel Telecinco.

The President considered that he had to be attentive in case something happened to him, but he could not separate himself from the people.

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Regarding the assailant who tried to assassinate the vice-president, Fernandez assured that he was not a madman but "a person in his full faculties."

"He is not unimputable; he does not have any alteration in his mental faculties and is fully aware of the criminality of his act," he affirmed.

Referring to the assassination attempt, the President recalled that after the last dictatorship (1976-1983), there were no political crimes in the country, so the images of the attack were "very hard."

"It is the image of someone who is triggering twice, thank God without luck, 20 centimeters away from Cristina's head," he stressed.

The case investigating the assassination attempt, which federal judge María Eugenia Capuchetti is investigating, is once again under the secrecy of summary proceedings.

The failed attempt occurred last Thursday when Fernando Sabag Montiel, a 35-year-old man, pointed and fired the gun twice in front of Fernández de Kirchner's face.

The assailant tried to kill her when the former President was returning to her home, in the Recoleta neighborhood of the city of Buenos Aires, in the context of a trial that has her indicted for allegedly directing public works projects in the province of Santa Cruz (south) during her administration (2007-2015) and that of her husband, the late Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007).

Sabag Montiel, of Brazilian origin, although he has lived in Argentina since he was six years old, has a criminal record for illegal possession of weapons.