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ARGENTINA-POLITICS-CRIME-SHOOTING
Lawmaker critical, official dead in Argentina shooting
BUENOS AIRES, May 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – An Argentine lawmaker was in a
“critical condition” after being seriously wounded in a “mafia” shooting
outside parliament in Buenos Aires on Thursday that left his civil servant
companion dead.
Deputy Hector Olivares, 61, was taking a walk in the square outside the
National Congress at 7:00 am (1000 GMT) with his friend Marcelo Yadon when
they were ambushed from a car.
“He’s in a critical condition. He’s in danger, he’s at risk. He underwent
emergency surgery to avoid death,” said Pablo Rossi, assistant director at
the Ramos Mejia hospital treating Olivares.
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said the attackers had the area under
surveillance before striking.
“It’s clear this is a mafia act,” she said.
The legislator was hit with three bullets, his spokesman Hector Lencinas
said, while Yadon, 58, took five rounds and died.
Olivares, a lawmaker in the governing coalition, is a member of the
criminal legislation committee and was working on a football-related violence
initiative.
Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri vowed to catch the culprits.
Hours later, a relative of the owner of the gray Volkswagen used by the
attackers was arrested, police sources said.
“The attackers shot Yadon as their main target and managed to kill him, and
they could have killed Olivares, but they didn’t,” Bullrich said.
She released a video of the murder taken by a security camera.
The two victims can be seen shot at close range when passing by a parked
car.
The video shows Yadon immobile on the ground while an injured Olivares
walks a few meters (yards) seeking help.
Two attackers emerge from the car but don’t finish off the lawmaker, with
one leaving the area on foot.
Seconds later a police officer arrives at the scene and begins providing
emergency first aid to Yadon, while just a few meters away the attackers’ car
slowly pulls away.
“We never received any threats of any type in the office. It’s an open
office where everyone is welcomed. (Olivares) was very calm,” Lencinas told
reporters.
Lawmaker Jose Cano called the shooting a “premeditated act.”
“The information we have is that the car was parked half an hour before.
They were waiting,” Cano told television station Canal TN.
He said the two men shared an apartment close to where they were attacked
and were childhood friends.
“I want to believe that it was a mistake. Olivares is an agricultural
producer, a good man, a family man. We feel terrible,” Julio Martinez, a
senator in Olivares’s home province of La Rioja, told Canal TN.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0842 hrs