Argentina authorities investigate man who tried to kill VP

Judicial and law enforcement authorities were investigating Friday whether a Brazilian citizen who appears to have tried to assassinate Argentina’s politically powerful Vice President Cristina Fernández was a lone gunman or whether he was part of a larger organization.

Fernando André Sabag Montiel is a 35-year-old street vendor who has lived in Argentina since 1998, a Security Ministry official told The Associated Press.

“There is no confirmed hypothesis,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk on the record. “Everything is being investigated.”

Montiel does not have a criminal record.

The assassination attempt has shaken Argentina, a country with a history of political violence, and allies of Fernández, who was president 2007-2015, have called for a march in downtown Buenos Aires to express their support and repudiate the incident.

The only reason the assassination attempt failed was that the handgun misfired, President Alberto Fernández, who is not related to the vice president, said Thursday night in a national broadcast in which he declared a national holiday Friday in light of the incident.

The vice president did not appear to have suffered any injury.