BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The ex-partner of former Argentine President Alberto Fernández has accused him of physically and emotionally abusing her, according to an Argentine court order issued Tuesday. The allegations shocked the country and threaten to further stain the reputation of the moderate leftist whose government many Argentines blame for deepening an economic crisis.
In the judicial order obtained by The Associated Press, the Buenos Aires federal court opened a criminal investigation into the accusations of “psychological terrorism,” phone harassment and physical abuse against Fernández from Fabiola Yáñez, his former partner of at least eight years and the mother of his second child.
The order said Yáñez, who testified by phone from her home in Madrid, has decided to press charges against Fernández for threatening and “psychologically intimidating” her daily and causing her “minor injuries in a context of gender-based violence.” The document did not give further details about her accusations of physical violence.
Fernández, a left-leaning Peronist politician who was president of Argentina from 2019 to 2023, vigorously denied her allegations and promised he would prove to the courts “what really happened.”
“It’s false and what I’m now being accused of never happened,” Fernández said in a statement posted Tuesday on the social media platform X, declining to say more to the media, citing his family’s privacy.
In the ruling, Judge Julián Ercolini granted Yáñez a restraining order that prevents the former president from coming within 500 meters (yards) of her and from contacting her.
The judge barred Fernández from traveling outside Argentina, and demanded that he “cease all forms of intimidation or harassment, both directly and indirectly” toward Yáñez. The ruling also asked Argentine authorities to provide Yáñez with police protection.
The court order comes weeks after Yáñez’s accusations first surfaced among thousands of leaked text messages under scrutiny by federal investigators in a separate embezzlement case against Fernández. That case accuses Fernández of irregularities in awarding state insurance contracts — allegations he also denies.
In leaked texts exchanged with Fernández’s former private secretary, María Cantero, Yáñez recounted episodes of abuse and harassment that occurred when she was pregnant with her now 2-year-old son, Francisco.
The court document seen by AP said Ercolini contacted her about the revelations in June, but Yáñez “did not wish to pursue criminal proceedings.” But she changed her mind and on Tuesday contacted the Buenos Aires court to press charges against the former president. Her lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Under the Peronist administration of Fernández and his vice president, the powerful populist former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina descended into its worst economic crisis in two decades with surging inflation and deepening poverty.
Fernández, a former law professor, chose not to run in Argentina’s 2023 election. Public outrage over the country’s tumbling fortunes helped propel the radical libertarian President Javier Milei to office.