MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro regrets attack against CFK despite personal differences

Had the assailant known how to use a gun things would have been different, Bolsonaro explained

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro Friday said he regretted Thursday's assassination attempt on Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) despite his personal disliking of her.

“I already sent a little note. I am sorry. Now, when I got stabbed, there were people who vibrated around. I am sorry, there are already people who want to put this problem on my account. And the aggressor there, thank goodness he didn't know how to handle a gun. If he did, he would have succeeded,” Bolsonaro said about the Brazilian perpetrator who has been arrested in Buenos Aires

The assailant has been identified as Fernando Andrés Sabag Montiel, a 35-year-old Brazilian resident of Buenos Aires, who was born in São Paulo to an Argentine mother and a Chilean father. The latter has reportedly been expelled from Brazil in 2021.

“Although I do not feel any sympathy for her, I do not wish her that,” Bolsonaro added. He also pointed out he wished a thorough investigation is carried out to determine whether Montiel acted alone or “perhaps, [someone] would have hired him.” Foreign Minister Carlos Alberto Franca said the information on Sabag Montiel was “contradictory.” He also said he had instructed Brazil's Embassy in Buenos Aires to follow the case closely.

Despite the Argentine incident, Bolsonaro insisted during a rally Friday that his government was leaving as a legacy the elimination of restrictions on the sale of firearms weapons and the growth in the number of citizens registered as hunters, shooters, and collectors (CACs, in the Portuguese acronym).

“I proudly say that we doubled the number of CACs in Brazil,” he argued. “Firearms more than guaranteeing family security give us the certainty that this homeland will never be enslaved,” he went on.

“We did our work collaborating with you, we want you to have more and more freedom, today you have the possession and ownership of weapons expanded,” Bolsonaro told a group of followers.

Then he referred to former President and candidate Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva as a “bandit” and stressed that he cannot be allowed to return to government.

Meanwhile, Paraguay's President Mario Abdo Benítez sent his solidarity to CFK through Twitter: “We stand in solidarity with the Republic of Argentina in the face of the assassination attempt suffered by its vice president @CFKArgentina. We join all the voices that repudiate violence and demand justice,” he wrote.