Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was assassinated near her home, but the gun misfired. According to AP, the attacker was detained by security personnel.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said the gun was loaded with five bullets. “The man pointed a firearm at her head and pulled the trigger,” the president said on nationwide air following the incident.

One of the witnesses, who was near the vice president during the incident, told reporters that she heard "the sound of pulling the trigger."

The attacker turned out to be 35-year-old Brazilian citizen Fernando Andre Sabag Montiel, who had no previous problems with the law. The Argentinean Bersa pistol he tried to fire has been sent for examination, Security Minister Anibal Fernandez told cable news channel C5N.

President Fernandez called it "the most serious incident since the country was restored to democracy" in 1983 after the military dictatorship.

On August 23, the Argentine Attorney General demanded that incumbent Vice President Cristina Kirchner be sentenced to 12 years in prison and suspended from public office for life on corruption charges during her two presidential terms. Kirchner is accused of organizing a system of bribery and kickbacks, which resulted in the theft of about one billion dollars from the state between 2007 and 2015, when she held the presidency. Kirchner herself does not admit her guilt, she calls it revenge.

In August, protests took place in front of her house in Buenos Aires, some of the protesters were against Kirchner, and some were in her support.