Federal prosecutor Ramiro González requested that former president Alberto Fernández be subjected to an oral trial in the gender-based violence case initiated by his former partner, former first lady Fabiola Yáñez.
The submission was sent to federal judge Julián Ercolini and states that the investigation is closed, with the date for the oral hearing still pending.If it moves forward, Fernández will become the first former Argentine head of state to face a process of this kind.
The 180-page prosecutorial request accuses Fernández of two counts of minor injuries and one count of serious injury, all aggravated by the relationship and the context of gender-based violence, abuse of power, and coercive threats.
He is also charged with the crime of coercion to prevent Yáñez from filing a complaint. The penalties for these charges, in concurrence, could range from 3 to 18 years in prison.According to the prosecution, the events allegedly occurred continuously since at least 2016 and continued beyond his departure from the Casa Rosada.
The accusation, confirmed in April by the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires, states that the former president exercised "systematic" psychological violence against Yáñez, with "harassment, bullying, control, insults, belittlement, and hostility". The prosecutor emphasized that Fernández "allegedly took advantage of a preexisting situation of vulnerability" and that the assaults took place both in the private sphere and at the presidential residence in Olivos.
The case file includes images released publicly in 2023 that show injuries on the arm and right eye of Yáñez, sent by the former first lady herself to presidential secretary María Cantero via WhatsApp. These pieces of evidence gave rise to the investigation. González stated: "There is no doubt about the blows received".
Among the evidence included are messages forensically extracted from Yáñez's phone and from devices linked to Fernández. The conversations were classified as "psychological terrorism" or "acknowledgment of violence", showing for the prosecution a pattern of abuse. The most relevant chats include:
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10/10/2017 – "Psychological terrorism": "Don't provoke me anymore. You already know how this ends," Fernández wrote, according to the transcript included in the case file.
