MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

CFK case: Assailant's phone reported restored to default values

CFK's lawyer admitted there was no certainty that this [tampering with the suspect's mobile phone] had actually happened

Argentine Federal Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti, who is in charge of the case of attempted murder Thursday evening against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK), Sunday imposed the seal of secrecy on the entire dossier after it was leaked to the press that the assailant's cell phone had been reset to default values.

According to various reports, key information about the Brazilian national Fernando Andrés Sabag Montiel, who was arrested minutes after the attack, could be lost forever after a failed attempt by the Federal Police to decrypt the device.

Capuchetti summoned Sunday Federal Police and Airport Security (PSA) experts as witnesses to delve into the matter. The contents of the SIM card and the device's chip were extracted and were being analyzed, it was also reported.

Investigators suspect that the values were reset automatically after various attempts to break through without the access codes.

“It would be a catastrophic mistake,” Secretary of Human Rights Horacio Pietragalla Corti stressed. “Let's close down everything!” he added. “This has to change. It is crazy! It's unbelievable!,” he went on as he insisted the opposition Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) should drop its hate speech.

Meanwhile, CFK's lawyer Gregorio Dalbón warned that “all those who touched the cell phone will face consequences” and announced that his client would file a petition to act as plaintiff in the case alongside the prosecution and bring her own experts to “try to analyze if the data of the cell phone” can be retrieved.

“It is very strange that in such an important event a cell phone has been treated with so little care,” Dalbón added. “I imagine that there will be a solution and, if there is not, there will be consequences for those who were in the preliminary investigation” for “breach of duty of a public official and poor performance of duties,” although he admitted that “there is no reliable evidence” that this has actually happened since to confirm it he must have access to the file, which will happen Monday.