Buenos Aires, Argentina - September 05, 2023

[Note: video contains Spanish language]

(Video archive)
Alberto Fernandez spoke for the first time about the complaint against him for gender violence. The former president denied having hit Fabiola Yanez, said that someone encouraged her to start the case, insisted that he will prove his innocence and claimed to be unaware of the chats in which the former first lady reproaches him for the blows to the eye and arm.

The former head of state affirmed that the former first lady did not initiate the criminal action by her own decision, but that "there is someone who has encouraged her" and sentenced: "There is a political exploitation of the Government."

“I keep saying the same thing. I am being accused of something I have not done. I have not hit Fabiola. I have never hit a woman. I was with the mother of my oldest son for 18 years and with Vilma Ibarra for 11 years and I have never had an episode of that nature. I have seen the photographs in the media, but I have not had access to the case yet. They have never come to my attention through any means. What I am going to do is wait, go to court and let the courts decide,” said the former president in an interview with El Pais of Spain.

He added: “For four years I was president of this country and I promoted gender policies and I know that in cases like this the burden of proof is reversed and the man is presumed guilty and has to prove his innocence. I am going to prove it.”

In addition, Fernandez did not take responsibility for the chat in which Yanez claims to have beaten her for three days in a row: “I don't know, because all the chats from 2022 and 2023 with Fabiola disappeared from my cell phone. The chats with Fabiola disappeared. I have no way of corroborating what that whole conversation is like. It is very possible that I felt that way in certain circumstances because I felt suffocated and overwhelmed.”

“I have no idea when it was,” he insisted on the matter, and added: “The fact is very important and I do not want to avoid it. But this appeared in a chat from my secretary with a message from Fabiola to her and I do not understand why it did not appear before. If that phone had not been seized, we would not be talking about these things.”

He also assured that the phrase about the beating for days “is not true” and argued: “I did not hit her. I also know in what context Fabiola said it. And that's why my answer: I don't say to him "I'm sorry because I hit you for three days." I say to him "I feel bad, stop."

"Frankly, I can't understand it. I repeat, I never used physical violence against Fabiola, or against any woman. I don't have the chat, I don't know what the conversation is like, I don't understand what he's talking about when he says that I've been hitting her for three days. That never happened," he added.

He also pointed out several times that he also went through bad times in the relationship: "On many occasions I have gone through situations of almost personal suffocation due to the circumstances I had to live through."