Ex-president Alberto Fernández called to testify in gender violence case

Ex-president Alberto Fernández has been formally summoned to testify next month in the court case investigating him for gender violence against his ex-partner Fabiola Yañez.

The order, by Judge Julián Ercolini, was made in a resolution later published by local press.

Ercolini said he considered the evidence supplied by the prosecutor "sufficient" to "summon Alberto Ángel Fernández to testify at 11am on December 11 of the current year" at the federal courthouse in Retiro, Buenos Aires.

"He is imputed for having caused on at least two occasions injuries to his then partner Fabiola Andrea Yáñez, whom he had attacked physically, in her arm and right eye," reads the judicial resolution, detailing that both alleged attacks occurred in 2021 during Fernández’s 2019-2023 presidency, according to the denunciation.

The writ adds that from then on "the psychological and physical violence became recurrent" on the part of Fernández and Yáñez "had been coerced " into not denouncing it.

“Fernández, directly and through third parties, insistently and aggressively asked her not to file a complaint” of gender violence, wrote the judge.

Last August 6, former first lady Yáñez denounced Fernández for physical and psychological violence. The couple have a son Francisco, 30 months old.

A few days later, the veteran Peronist leader was indicted in the case at the request of the prosecutor, who described the different types of violence which Yáñez said she had suffered, subsequently summoning various witnesses to hear their testimony.

Fernández, 65, has denied all accusations.

"The truth lies elsewhere," he maintained via his social networks.

Judge Ercolini said in his ruling that Fernández’s abuse of Yáñez had left her “with psychological damage, producing a permanent weakening of her health.”

– TIMES/AFP/NA