ARI LIJALAD

On 9 May 2025, President Javier Milei filed a complaint against journalist Ari Lijalad, from the online media outlet El Destape, for the alleged offences of ‘slander or false accusation’ and ‘defamation’, in response to an article written by Lijalad on El Destape. Lijalad publicly stated on his X account that the legal action was, in his view, ‘[a]nother chapter in [Milei’s] incitement to hatred, another step in his crusade to impose his opinions as fact and to deny the existence of truthful, checked and professionally produced information from journalism’. 

The criminal complaint against Lijalad was dismissed by Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas on 4 June 2025, who ruled that the journalist’s statements were protected by freedom of the press and constituted legitimate political analysis. President Milei  appealed the decision, unsuccessfully. Nevertheless, in late September 2025, Federal Chamber Judge Leopoldo Bruglia ordered Judge Rafecas to hold a hearing before closing the case. 

Ari Lijalad is a journalist and documentary maker specialising in investigative reporting. He is the director, researcher and screenwriter of the documentary series Clarín. Un invento argentino (2012) and the documentary Viva Che Masetti. He has conducted research for various books on Argentine political history, collaborated with journalist and writer María Seoane, and writes for Caras y Caretas magazine and the newspaper Tiempo Argentino. He is also the compiler of two books, Plan Macri and Macri lo hizo.