Fernando Sabag Montiel, the suspect in an apparent assassination attempt against Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has had a close run-in with law enforcement, police told CNN.

Montiel was arrested last year for “improper use of a weapon.” He was handcuffed after he was found with a handgun outside the VP’s home in Argentina capital Buenos Aires. Montil reportedly shot at her but the gun failed. 

A police spokesperson told CNN that Montiel had a weapons permit. He was arrested in 2021 for carrying a large knife in public, adding that he has at least one tattoo with Nazi symbols.

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Officials at migration office said that Montiel was born in the Brazilian city of São Paulo on January 13, 1987.

“Cristina is still alive because — for some reason we can’t technically confirm at this moment — the weapon, which was armed with five bullets, did not shoot although the trigger was pulled,” Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández said in a televised address late Thursday. “This is the most serious event since we recovered our democracy.”

Montiel is currently in custody and awaits trial on a charge of attempted murder. He has been assigned a public defense attorney, according to two magistrates.

Montiel, 35, has a history of carrying weapons. He was arrested in the Agronomy neighborhood. Police stopped him because the rear plate of the car had almost fallen off, and the individual claimed to be in an accident.

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At the time, police found a 35-centimetre-long knife. Authorities seized the knife from Montiel. He was also a sharp critic of the current Argentine government. 

Montiel’s girlfriend appeared in a live interview on Argentine national television following his arrest. She said that she too was struggling to make sense of what happened.

Montiel was a “good, hard-working man” who had shown no signs of violence “in recent weeks,” she said. In the interview, she was identified only by her first name Ambar.

She said she had last seen him Wednesday and could not understand “why he did what he did.”

“In all honesty, I was not aware of all this. [Sabag] did not tell me any detail,” Ambar said.