BUENOS AIRES - The man who tried to murder Argentina Vice President Cristina Kirchner "didn't act alone," one of the politician's lawyers said Sunday.

Scandal-tainted Kirchner, 69, survived an apparent assassination attempt as she mingled with supporters outside her home on Thursday night when a gun brandished by Fernando Andre Sabag Montiel failed to fire.

"He didn't act alone because there were preparatory actions to the assassination attempt," lawyer Gregorio Dalbon told C5N television station, without offering further details.

"There were, without a doubt, other people who were aware of this situation."

Sabag, 35, a Brazilian national who had been living in Argentina since his youth, has not told investigators what his motivations were.

Images from his social networks showed the man sporting tattoos with Nazi connotations.

As Ms Kirchner, who is currently on trial for corruption and accused of accepting bribes in her Patagonian stronghold, greeted supporters outside her Buenos Aires home, Sabag pointed a gun at her head from within the crowd.

For reasons as yet unknown, the loaded gun did not go off despite being fired, President Alberto Fernandez said shortly after the incident.

As police seek to make sense of the attack, Mr Dalbon has said he would like investigators to interview a man who has identified himself as the attacker's friend "Mario".

Shortly after the attack, a man called Mario told a television channel that he had been friends with Sabag since they were teenagers.

He said he was "sure that (Sabag's) intention was to kill her".

He also said he had not seen Sabag in 10 months, the period in which the would-be killer had sought to acquire a gun. AFP