An indigenous market vendor who was wrongly convicted of kidnapping and spent three years in prison deserves compensation for the time she was locked away, Amnesty International said on Thursday.
“Nothing will replace the three years she lost, but it is vital that those responsible for this injustice be brought before justice, and that she receive an appropriate compensation,” said Kerrie Howard, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Americas.
Jacinta Francisco Marcial, whose kidnapping conviction sparked an international protest, walked out of prison on Wednesday after authorities decided not to contest an appeal of her 21-year sentence.
Mexico’s Indians, many of whom don’t speak Spanish, have a right to an interpreter in legal proceedings under current law, but none was apparently provided to Marcial, an Otomi Indian, during the initial stages of her trial.
“I didn’t even know what kidnapping was,” Marcial, 46, told reporters on Thursday, speaking in a Spanish that she largely learned while in prison. “I couldn’t stop crying.”
Her lawyer Andres Diaz, who works with the Mexico-based Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez human rights center, said her legal team is considering bringing legal action against the government. Activists said her case was symbolic of the poor treatment of Mexico’s 6 million speakers of indigenous languages.
Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont said he was pleased that prosecutors acknowledged their mistakes, but he did not know if Marcial would receive compensation.
“I don’t know what process will be followed in the case of Jacinta,” Gomez-Mont said at a news conference. “I celebrate that authorities were sensible, that they did not play the complacent game of ‘well, now that it’s done, let’s see how far we can go,’ and that there is capacity for rectification in some cases.”
Amnesty International is demanding new trials for two other women convicted in the 2006 case, which began when federal agents raided a street market in the central state of Queretaro to confiscate pirated goods. During the incident, angry vendors surrounded the agents and briefly held them hostage, demanding to be paid for the loss of their merchandise. Marcial denied she played any role in detaining the agents.
The attorney general’s office has said a review of her case turned up “contradictions in the statements of federal agents.”
“From the evidence it is clear that some witnesses said they saw the defendant at the scene, others say they did not see her ... creating a reasonable doubt about her involvement,” the office said in a statement.
The statement said there was strong evidence against two other convicted women.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of