 |
|
|
 Entertainment | Books | April 2006 
Mexican Writer's Book on Pedophiles Exposes Abuses, and Puts Her in Peril
 S. Lynne Walker - Copley News
| | Journalist Lydia Cacho left a Cancun jail last month, followed by a federal agent assigned to protect her. Cacho must register often to show she has not skipped bail on libel charges. (Luis J. Jiménez/Copley News) | 
| | Cancun attorney Verónica Acacio held up a tabloid with a photo of a woman called Emma, an alleged victim of sexual abuse. Emma, who is now 22, has since retracted her allegations. (Luis J. Jiménez/Copley News) | 
| | Jean Succar Kuri's villa at the Solymar complex in Cancun's posh hotel zone has been vacant since his arrest in early 2004. (Luis J. Jiménez/Copley News) |
Cancun, Mexico – The moment that changed journalist Lydia Cacho's life came on a humid, moonless night in the tropical resort of Cancun.
A 19-year-old, her voice broken by sobs, repeated to Cacho what she had told police. A Cancun businessman had sexually abused her for years, she said, and her younger sister had been molested at the man's oceanfront villa, too.
The girl's accusations – and Cacho's response – set into motion a series of events that has exposed a tangled web of wealth and power reaching across Mexico.
The Cancun businessman, Jean Succar Kuri, has been jailed for two years in Arizona, fighting extradition to Mexico. The governor of Puebla state is being pressured to resign.
And Cacho is facing criminal libel charges that could send her to prison.
Cacho, the 42-year-old author of a book published last year about a network of pedophiles, has become as much a part of the story as the children she set out to save.
The founder of a battered women's shelter in Cancun, Cacho found herself in a harsh and unwelcome spotlight when she published allegations of rape and child pornography against Succar, 61, a Lebanese national who is a legal U.S. resident and owns three homes in Southern California.
Cacho, who studied at the Sorbonne and speaks four languages, included graphic interviews with Succar's alleged victims. Some said they met Succar when they were as young as 5 years old.
Her book, “The Demons of Eden,” also detailed a covertly filmed conversation released by Mexican law enforcement in which Succar acknowledges to one of his alleged victims that fondling little girls is his “vice.”
Cacho's work sparked a nationwide controversy and a strong denial from Succar's San Diego attorney, Charles Goldberg, who said, “There's an awful lot of evidence to indicate that the charges were fabricated, or exaggerated.”
Six of the seven alleged victims have since retracted their accusations, he said. Succar's next hearing was scheduled for today before a federal judge in Phoenix.
In December, Cacho was arrested on libel charges outside her Cancun office and driven 1,000 miles to a jail in Puebla. During the harrowing, 20-hour ride, she said, police officers tormented her by hinting of a plan to rape and kill her.
Although she was released unharmed on $7,000 bail, Cacho's experience underscores the physical and legal dangers faced by Mexican journalists.
Under Mexico's antiquated libel laws, truth is not an absolute defense because reporters must also prove they did not intend to damage the image of their subject. Conviction can result in a prison sentence.
Isabel Arvide, 54, was given a suspended one-year sentence in March and ordered to pay $19,000 in punitive damages after a judge in the northern state of Chihuahua convicted her of libeling a former Chihuahua state attorney general.
Mexico's libel law “totally limits the freedom of expression, not just of journalists, but of any Mexican citizen,” said Guillermo Cuen, a Mexico City attorney representing Cacho.
Lured to a villa
The girls told Mexican authorities that it was in Villa 1 at the Solymar condominium in Cancun's posh hotel zone where they were photographed, filmed and sexually molested.
In statements to law enforcement and during sessions with government psychiatrists, the girls said they were lured to the seaside villa by friends, and even other children in their own families, who told stories about money and expensive gifts and a chance to glide down a sliding board into Succar's swimming pool.
Poor, uneducated and desperate for attention in the manufactured paradise of Cancun, the children said they found in the rich, glittering world of Solymar an escape from their desolate existence.
“He photographed me and he filmed me alone, and on other occasions, together with other people or with him,” one of Succar's alleged victims said in a signed statement made to Mexico's Attorney General's Office.
The girl said she was 6 when she met Succar. “I want to make it clear that these photos and these videos were taken when I was nude, having sexual relations with him or with other people.”
The girl was who 19 when first interviewed by Cacho said she met Succar, who is married and has children, when she was 13.
“He filmed me approximately seven times,” the girl, whom Cacho identified as Emma in her book, said in a signed statement made to the Attorney General's Office. “He also did it with other girls. That is to say, he took photos and filmed them completely nude.”
Based on the children's accusations, Succar was charged by authorities in the state of Quintana Roo, where Cancun is located, with child pornography and sexual abuse.
“He is accused of raping on numerous occasions three minors who went to his house to swim in the pool and watch television,” a bulletin released by the federal Attorney General's Office said. “Also, Jean Succar Kuri forced a pair of minors to have sexual relations to take their photos.”
Parade of girls
Three doors down from Villa 1, Succar's American neighbors were struck by the constant flow of young girls to his Cancun retreat.
Tom and Jean Vickers, a retired couple from New Jersey, had bought a two-story villa at Solymar in 2000.
When the Vickers arrived to spend their winters in the Caribbean, they often saw Succar and the girls splashing around in his pool.
“We noticed it from Day One,” said Jean Vickers, 73. “He had them in the swimming pool. We constantly saw young girls, children. Very seldom did we see his family here.”
It wasn't just the constant parade of girls that drew attention to Succar. It was also his announcement at an annual owners' meeting that he intended to buy the entire complex.
“That scared a lot of people and they sold their units cheaply,” said Lynette Anderson, a West Virginia businesswoman who with her husband owns nine units at Solymar and is president of the condominium's vigilance committee.
Succar now owns 59 of Solymar's 243 units and villas, in addition to the restaurant, reception area and poolside bar, Anderson said.
Solymar owners were once again frightened when gunfire awakened them one night in 2004. The battle erupted over ownership of three Succar villas – numbers 1, 5 and 9 – which was disputed after his arrest.
“There were probably 50 to 75 gunshots,” said Tom Vickers, 71, who was in his villa at the time. “They used our potted plants as missiles. There was blood all over our patio. This whole melee went on for 45 minutes or so.”
Tom Vickers and Anderson and other Solymar owners say they receive calls from Succar, who is in protective custody in a Florence, Ariz., prison.
“He wants to control what is going on at Solymar,” Anderson said.
Taped conversation
A smiling Succar sips a soft drink and chats with Emma, by now nearly an adult. Succar doesn't know it, but Emma is wearing a hidden microphone and law enforcement is filming nearby.
In the video, Succar talks about why he is drawn to a young girl.
“It fascinates me to do this to her: To touch her, to caress her . . . That is all I do. It is my vice,” he said. “Yes, it is a crime and yes, it is prohibited and yes, it is bad. I am not saying that I am decent and perfect. The thing is that I do not commit what we call abuse.”
Succar's lawyer, Goldberg, said the video, which contains unexplained skips and pauses, was altered to make it appear that Succar admitted sexually abusing girls.
Emma, who is now 22, has retracted her allegations.
According to Goldberg, she says “she has reviewed the video, that it has been edited, that the conversation in the video does not reflect the conversation” she had with Succar.
On Oct. 30, 2003, just days after the video was filmed, a Cancun judge issued a warrant for Succar's arrest. But Succar had already fled the country in the first-class section of a nonstop flight to Los Angeles.
Responding to the warrant, U.S. federal agents picked up Succar's trail in Downey, where he owns a $871,000 home, said Kurt Ellingson, a senior inspector for the U.S. Marshal's Service.
On Feb. 6, 2004, agents stopped a van in Chandler, Ariz., in which Succar was a passenger.
Since then, Succar has been fighting extradition, a process his attorney said could take years.
During an April 2005 hearing before U.S. Magistrate David Duncan, Goldberg presented evidence challenging the statements by Succar's alleged victims.
Goldberg, a specialist in extradition cases who has traveled to Cancun five times to interview witnesses, said he and his investigators found “a very consistent pattern of intimidation of the children, and sometimes their parents, by representatives of the Mexican prosecutor's office.”
He said the statements were signed “after each of the children had been snatched from her home and held incommunicado in a facility that was controlled by the prosecutor's office for a period of up to two months.”
New questions were raised about the credibility of the accusations after a deputy attorney general in Quintana Roo was imprisoned in another child-abuse case for illegally removing children from their homes and putting them up for adoption. The deputy attorney general, who took the children's statements in the Succar case, was released in December after serving nearly five months in jail.
The extradition proceedings have not dealt with Succar's guilt or innocence, Goldberg said. “We have no way of knowing what happened, if anything, between him and any of these girls.”
On the offensive
As Succar waits in jail, Cacho has gone on the offensive.
She filed a criminal complaint last month against Puebla Gov. Mario Marín, the state attorney general and the judge who presided over a hearing following her arrest.
She also named Kamel Nacif, 69, a Lebanese businessman who allegedly pressured the governor to have Cacho arrested. Nacif accused Cacho of libeling him in her book by linking him to Succar and the alleged sexual abuse of children.
Cacho accused her accusers of abuse of power, influence peddling, torture and attempted rape.
Puebla's attorney general admitted to reporters that there was no legal justification for detaining Cacho and transporting her across the country.
Cacho was initially accused of failing to respond to a judge's summons to appear in court on the libel charges. The state attorney general now acknowledges that the summons was never issued.
In taped phone conversations aired on national television, Nacif allegedly congratulates the governor for persecuting Cacho.
Although Nacif refers to the person on the other end of the line as “my precious Gov,” Marín has denied the voice is his.
Mexico's lower house of Congress has called for Marín to step down while authorities investigate allegations that he participated in the revenge plot against Cacho.
Marín now says will send an initiative to the state legislature proposing that a special prosecutor be named to investigate pedophiles and child abusers. Nacif will be the first target, the governor's office said.
Nacif, known as the “King of Blue Jeans” because of his empire of clothing maquiladoras in Puebla, has disappeared from public events.
Cacho has returned to running her battered women's shelter.
Over the past three months, 40,000 copies of her book have been sold, making “The Demons of Eden” the second-most-popular book in Mexico after Harry Potter. Her book is being translated into English and will be released by Random House in the United States later this year.
Whenever she leaves her house, two federal agents travel with her as bodyguards, driving her around town in an armored car. And every two weeks, she must go to a Cancun jail and register to show that she hasn't skipped bail on the libel charges.
Still, she has no regrets about writing her controversial book. She is already working on another one, about the trafficking of women and children in Mexico, which she hopes to publish next year.
“I think children should have lives free of violence. No kid deserves this.”
Then she began to weep.
“Yes,” Cacho said. “I would do it all over again.”
S. Lynne Walker: slwalker@prodigy.net.mx |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us