2 weeks Ago By Facundo Iglesia
The mother of former first lady Fabiola Yañez testified to prosecutor Ramiro González that she saw ex-President Alberto Fernández striking Yañez while she was eight months pregnant. She also said that the former leader was verbally violent towards her and her daughter on multiple occasions. Meanwhile, a defense witness known only as Witness B, a former friend of Yañez, told González that Yañez never told them Fernández was violent towards her.
The witnesses were the latest to testify before the prosecutor in a week that also saw a flurry of new leaked material, including recordings that appear to show Fernández insulting and swearing at Yañez, and more photos of her with bruises. Fernández, who was Argentina’s president from 2019 to 2023, was formally indicted for aggravated bodily harm and violent threats against his ex-partner Yañez in August. He has denied the accusations.
Miriam Verdugo, Yañez’s mother, told González that Fernández hit the former first lady when she was eight months pregnant, according to a transcript of her testimony viewed by the Herald . Verdugo said that Fernández used to say “I’m the President and I can do whatever I want.” She said that, after the son of the couple was born in 2022, Yáñez usually came back to the Presidential residence’s guest house, where they were both staying, with bruises.
According to Verdugo, she once arrived “with four fingerprints on her face.” After the infamous picture of Yañez’s birthday celebration during the COVID-19 lockdown was leaked just before the legislative elections, everything “took a turn for the worse” for Yáñez, according to Verdugo. “It was the same complaint from Alberto every day: ‘Because of you I lost the election,’ ‘because of you I’m going to lose everything,’” she said.
Verdugo added that there were other assaults besides those specified in the investigation, and that both she and Yañez experienced verbal violence from Fernández. Fernández, she stated, used to say that both mother and daughter were “nobody” and threatened Yañez by saying he would take away the couple’s baby son. “He wanted to convince me that my daughter was crazy, that we had to take her to the doctor and he always called me about all that, he wanted me to fix the problems that he caused,” Verdugo said in her testimony.
Argentine media published messages from Fernández to Yañez’s mother, asking her to help with her daughter’s alleged problems with alcohol use. Verdugo claimed that the Presidential medical staff overlooked Yañez’s drinking and Fernández’s violence toward her. “I knew what it was, the doctor knew what it was, everyone knew what it was, but everyone kept quiet,” she said.
Witness B, a former friend of Yañez, said the former first lady had alcohol dependence/drank excessively. “She never told me that he had hit her, nor did she send me any kind of chats or messages to that effect,” she said. Asked if she had seen bruises on Yañez’s body like the ones in the photo leaked by the press before the former first lady filed the legal complaint, she answered: “No, I only saw bumps and bruises from when she fell down when she was drunk.
” This week, new images of Yañez with bruises were published by Argentina’s national media. In one, the former president is seen sleeping next to her, while in others she is seen in bed, with a black eye, or with a cold compress on her face. New chats of the couple arguing were also leaked, along with an audio in which the former president insults his then-partner.
The former president’s defense has provided five witnesses, former employees of the presidential residence. They are expected to testify under oath in the last week of September and first week of October. González will then have to decide whether to call Fernández for questioning.
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