The Chamber of Deputies approved a judicial resolution enabling police to seize Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) lawmaker Gerardo Milman’s cell phone on Wednesday afternoon. The move comes as part of the investigation into the assassination attempt against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner last year. Milman is alleged to have said: “When they kill her I’ll be on my way to the coast” two days before it happened.

Wednesday’s vote was decided by a show of hands, and Milman himself voted in favor.

Milman’s lawyer, Manuel Barros, had already handed over the device on Tuesday to Judge María Eugenia Capuchetti’s office, which is investigating the assassination attempt, together with a formal request against experts analyzing it. Barros said to the media that he would appeal against the ruling that enabled the seizure because it was not yet approved in the Deputies’ Chamber.

Earlier, Capuchetti’s request for Milman’s cellphone had been unanimously supported by the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which includes members of both opposition and ruling parties.

PRO deputy Pablo Tonelli said he was in “total agreement” with Milman handing over the cell phone. “Under no circumstances should [lawmakers’] privileged immunity give any kind of impunity, especially when it comes to evidence,” said Graciela Camaño, a member of the Identidad Bonaerense party. Rodolfo Tailhade, from the Frente de Todos ruling party, supported the authorization although he regretted the delay. “Eleven months without him handing over the mobile phone is not a precedent that honors us,” he said.

On September 1, 2022, Fernando Sabag Montiel — a member of the so-called “Cotton Candy Gang” — attempted to shoot Kirchner at point-blank range outside her Recoleta home. The bullet, however, did not come out. Carrizo and Uliarte were arrested alongside him as accomplices shortly after, accused of planning and executing the attack. 

On 23 September, an advisor to the ruling party in the Chamber of Deputies, Jorge Abello, testified that Milman said: “When they kill her I’ll be on my way to the coast” days before the attack took place. In May, Milman’s former secretary Ivana Bohdziewicz gave testimony alleging that the contents of her phone had been wiped clean at offices belonging to a group led by opposition presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich.

— With information from Télam