An Argentine prosecutor charged former president Alberto Fernandez (2019-2023) by the alleged crime of serious injuries and coercive threats to former first lady Fabiola Yáñez, local media reported.
The accusation was made by federal prosecutor Ramiro Gonzálezin charge of the investigation opened by the complaint against Fernández filed by Yáñez for alleged gender-based violence.
With this accusation, the prosecutor requested to gather the first evidence in the framework of the complaint filed based on photographs and conversations found by the Justice on the phone of Fernández’s secretary, as part of an investigation for alleged corruption in public contracting.
Crimes of injuries doubly aggravated by the link
The former president is charged with the crimes of serious injuries doubly aggravated by the relationship and by occurring in a context of gender violence and coercive threats against his ex-partner, who on Tuesday (08/13/2024) had testified before González from Madrid, where he resides.
In its opinion, The prosecutor stated that Yáñez “suffered a relationship marked by harassment, psychological harassment and physical aggression in a context of gender and domestic violence.” based “on an asymmetric and unequal power relationship that has developed over time, which was exponentially increased by the election of Fernández as president” in 2019, and “the exercise of office” until last December.
Criminally relevant behaviors in “asymmetry structure”
According to the prosecutor, under “this structure of asymmetry,” Fernández would have “engaged in various criminally relevant behaviors,” including forcing Yáñez to have an abortion in 2016, “through a plan that constituted mistreatment, denial of speech, harassment,” by which the woman was “coerced” into making that decision, “causing her irreparable psychological damage.”
It also notes that on August 12, 2021 Fernández grabbed Yáñez by the arm “causing the injuries” whose image can be seen” in a photo sent by Yáñez to María Cantero, secretary of the Peronist politician.
Likewise, he indicated that in July 2021, Fernández, while he was with Yáñez in bed in the ‘presidential suite’ of the official residence of Olivos, after an argument “he punched her in the eye”, and that on August 11, 2021, after another argument, the then president “shook Yáñez by her arms, causing an injury to one of her limbs and held her by the neck with his hands.”
The document also states that On August 12, 2021, Fernández kicked Yáñez in the stomach“knowing that the aforementioned could be pregnant at that time.”
The prosecutor said that during the first half of 2023, “Alberto Fernández habitually hit Yáñez with his open hand,” who decided to move with her son, Francisco, born in April 2022, to the guest house in Olivos, where the former president “entered violently.”
The prosecutor also points out that Yáñez reported that, while he was on a trip to Foz de Iguazú (Brazil), he showed Ayelén Mazzina, then head of the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, photos of the blows he suffered and told him that he wanted to leave the Olivos residenceto which the then minister limited herself to asking him to visit her at the Ministry “without taking any type of measure in accordance with the role she played at that time.”
The prosecutor ordered a separate investigation into this matter.
The prosecutor also said that on June 28, Yáñez received a call from his then lawyer, Juan Pablo Fioribello, who suggested he not report Fernández.
Yáñez also “reported having received various types of threats in recent weeks, both from Alberto Fernández and from third parties, via calls and text messages.”
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