The father of the Brazilian arrested for trying to shoot Argentina’s vice president, Cristina Kirchner, on Thursday night (1st), is a Chilean with an extensive criminal record in the state of São Paulo. Fernando Ernesto Montiel Araya, 64, has at least nine stints with the police since the 1980s, which resulted in six convictions and two acquittals in court — one case was dropped.
His son, Fernando Andrés Sabag Montiel, 35, was arrested shortly after pulling the trigger of a 32-caliber Bersa pistol against Cristina Kirchner’s face as she arrived home in the upscale Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
The report had access to a document that shows Araya’s indictments and arrests, in addition to her movement in the São Paulo prison system. The list does not indicate who the lawyers were in the cases or what the suspect argued in his defense.
According to the system of the SSP (Secretariat of Public Security of São Paulo), the first investigation opened against Araya was in June 1987, on suspicion of removing or displacing siding, landmark or any other sign indicating a dividing line, in order to appropriate, as a whole, or in part, of another’s immovable thing. The investigation was carried out by the 16th Police District (Vila Clementino), south of the capital, and was shelved in August of the same year.
The man was arrested in the act in July 1988. This time for attempted theft at a Drogaria São Paulo unit. He was taken to the 4th DP (Consolação). Tried, he was acquitted.
Araya was the subject of another investigation opened in August 1990. On the 26th of that month, the 6th DP (Cambuci) opened an investigation for allegedly having offended the bodily integrity or health of another person, in addition to misappropriation, that is, if take possession of something that is not yours. In that case, he was sentenced to one year in open custody.
The police record gained another chapter in January 1991, when the 15th DP (Itaim Bibi) opened an investigation against him on suspicion of driving without a license, which is considered a criminal misdemeanor. Araya was acquitted in the case.
The Chilean was arrested in January 1992 by DENARC (narcotics department) police officers on suspicion of transporting drugs. In that case, he was sentenced to four years in prison.
He returned to jail nine years later, when he was arrested in the act on charges of embezzlement, being taken to the 5th DP (Acclimation). For the crime, he was sentenced to one year in prison.
In his file there is also a passage for theft by the 3rd DP (Campos Elíseos), in February 2007, in which he was sentenced to two years in detention, and by the 4th DP, also for theft and forgery of a public document, in 2010. In the latter, sentenced to four years.
The most recent incident recorded by the São Paulo police involving the Chilean took place on October 25, 2014, when he was arrested in flagrante delicto for alleged attempted theft at a unit of the Extra supermarket, in Guarujá, on the coast of São Paulo. For the action, he was sentenced to eight months in open custody.
Araya was imprisoned in several units in the state, such as the Pinheiros Provisional Detention Center, in the west of the capital, and in the Itaí penitentiary, in the interior.
His record states that he last left prison on October 20, 2015, after receiving parole.
The author of the attempted attack against Cristina Kirchner is the son of a Chilean and an Argentine. He also has a ticket with the Argentine police, dated March 2021. According to the newspaper Clarín, Sabag was stopped for driving without a license plate in the neighborhood of La Paternal, where he allegedly lived at the time.
At the time, he told authorities that the sign had fallen days before because of an accident.
