MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Milei files criminal complaints against three newspeople

The complaints stem from statements Milei claims damaged his honor (Pic Milei_Canosa)

Argentine President Javier Milei filed criminal complaints against journalists Carlos Pagni, Viviana Canosa, and Ari Lijalad for alleged slander and libel. The cases have been assigned to Federal Judges Daniel Rafecas (Pagni and Lijalad) and Sebastián Ramos (Canosa).

Pagni and Lijalad were accused of comparing him to Adolf Hitler and Nazism, while Canosa allegedly called him a “despot” and “authoritarian,” likening him to dictatorial leaders.

Milei announced he had signed the complaints during a six-hour appearance on the streaming show “La Misa” hosted by Libertarian Daniel Parisini (Gordo Dan), where he repeatedly criticized journalists, calling them “prostitutes of politicians” and claiming they spread lies.

The head of State also cited support from Israel’s President Isaac Herzog against the Nazi comparisons, arguing they trivialize the Holocaust.

According to La Nación, -where Pagni works- the analyst has been brought to Justice for statements he never made. Nevertheless, Milei insisted these remarks “seriously” affected his “honor and reputation”.

“Mr. Pagni made a historical review of the Nazi regime with the clear intention of inducing the reader to an insidious comparison between the dictator Adolf Hitler and myself,” he argued.

He ”made statements in which he attributed to me having carried out the same conducts that were carried out (SIC) by the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler to reach power,” Milei's legal filing mentioned while also quoting a (Delegation of Argentine Israeli Association's - DAIA) communiqué repudiating the fact.

“Mr. Pagni mentioned the article titled 'Argentina, a tower of Babel' and said that it compared 'the conditions under which our Argentine president came to power with Hitler's Germany', an idea that he later continued to develop during his program...,” the President went on in his filing.

“One more chapter of his incitement to hatred, another step in his crusade to impose his opinions as a fact and to deny the existence of truthful, checked, and professionally produced information from journalism,” Lijalad said.