Juana Alonzo Santizo mentioned she was tortured and compelled to signal a confession in Spanish, a language she doesn’t converse.
An Indigenous Guatemalan girl who spent greater than seven years in jail in Mexico with out trial has returned to her homeland, after a court docket ordered her launched.
The Guatemalan Overseas Ministry confirmed that Juana Alonzo Santizo, 35, who was accused of kidnapping and jailed in a northern Mexican border metropolis, had arrived in Guatemala.
A video revealed on Twitter confirmed Alonzo being greeted by Guatemalan Overseas Minister Mario Bucaro on the Guatemala Metropolis airport on Sunday earlier than being joined by her household and collapsing into her father’s and her uncle’s arms.
Her kinfolk helped her change from denims into conventional Indigenous regional garments.
#AcciónConsularGT | El #CancillerGT @MarioBucaroGT, recibió en el país a la guatemalteca Juana Alonzo, quien recientemente fue liberada por @FGJ_Tam. Gracias al trabajo conjunto que actualmente existe entre los Gobiernos de Guatemala y México en el tema migratorio.🤝 pic.twitter.com/fQK18asHZj
— MINEX Guatemala 🇬🇹 (@MinexGt) May 23, 2022
“I’m now free and I’m very pleased with my household,” Alonzo mentioned in halting Spanish, which she discovered whereas in jail.
“It has been eight years with out seeing them,” she mentioned earlier than breaking into tears and thanking those that had supported her launch.
The court docket had dominated there was no constant proof in opposition to her, mentioned Netzai Sandoval, head of Mexico’s federal public defenders’ workplace.
Sandoval, whose workplace took cost of defending Alonzo in 2021, contends she was tortured and compelled to signal a confession that she didn’t perceive as a result of she couldn’t converse Spanish.
The Mayan Chuj girl left her village, San Mateo Ixtatan, in 2014 in search of emigrate to america, he mentioned. She was detained by immigration officers whereas in Reynosa, a Mexican border metropolis throughout from McAllen, Texas and one of many essential smuggling factors in Tamaulipas state.
Police then accused her of kidnapping and put her in jail, Sandoval mentioned. He mentioned the fees weren’t translated into her Chuj language till this yr.
She by no means was convicted, having by no means been tried, and was held all that point in “pre-trial detention”.
An advocacy marketing campaign for her freedom was supported by nationwide and worldwide teams and by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and the Tamaulipas prosecutor’s workplace withdrew the fees in opposition to her.
“It’s a completely aberrant case,” Sandoval mentioned, including that every one her rights had been violated as a result of “she is a girl, she is an Indigenous particular person, she is a migrant, she is poor, and she or he didn’t converse Spanish”.
“I’m an immigrant, I’m not a kidnapper, as a result of I’m ignorant, this occurred to me as a result of there was by no means a translator, there was nobody, my consulate was not with me, that’s the reason everybody took benefit of me, however proper now, thank God, I’m free, I’m completely satisfied,” Alonzo mentioned.
Pedro Alonzo, an uncle, mentioned she had migrated in hopes of serving to her household.
“Her crime was being unable to talk Spanish. Who’s going to pay for that scar?” he mentioned.
In keeping with statistics from Mexico’s federal authorities, 43 p.c of the folks held within the nation’s prisons haven’t been convicted or sentenced.
