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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Femicide Cases are Unraveling in Northern Mexico
 Frontera NorteSur
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 |  | It happened when I was playing a joke on her. I pointed the pistol at her, from which I had removed the bullets for cleaning, but a projectile got stuck in the magazine and caused her death.
- Rafael Pineda Delgado, defendant |  | |
Legal charges in the murder cases of several women and young girls in Ciudad Juarez began falling apart in recent days. Even as Mexican authorities stepped up a campaign to convince international public opinion that the justice tide was turning in favor of female victims of gender violence, multiple defendants walked free or were not charged with crimes.
In a major setback to the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General (PGJE), a state judge dismissed a murder charge against Alejandro Delgado Valles, or "El Cala," who was accused in the 1998 killing of teenager Silvia Gabriela Laguna Cruz. In response, Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez said that her office would retain the option of reviving the case against Delgado. The young man's lawyer, Abraham Hinojos Rubio, declared he would demand state restitution for alleged "moral damages" that the PGJE caused his client.
Officially implicated in another case in which the bodies of eight murdered women were discovered in the same Ciudad Juarez cotton field in 2001, Delgado was presented by the PGJE as a "protected witness" against two men accused of the killings.
Publicly recanting earlier this year, Delgado charged that he had been pressured into making false statements by state police. Ciudad Juarez media, human rights activists and even former government officials have all criticized the latest cotton field case as lacking the same type of credibility that characterized two previous ones against suspects who were eventually cleared. Relatives of Edgar Alvarez Cruz, a suspect jailed in the cotton field case who insists on his innocence, are calling on Chihuahua's high court to review the charges.
In a separate development on October 3, new Chihuahua State Supreme Court President Rodolfo Acosta Muñoz ordered two men freed from prison who were earlier convicted in the brutal 2005 sexual assault and murder of 7-year-old Airis Estrella Enriquez Pando, whose remains were found stuffed in a barrel at a pig farm on the edge of Ciudad Juarez. Ruling on an appeal, Judge Acosta found there was insufficient evidence to connect Eustacio Aleman Zendejas and Juan Manuel Alvarado Saenz to Airis' murder. Two other men, including prime suspect Luis Garcia Villalbazo, are serving long prison sentences for the crime.
Airis' parents, Rubi Pando and Jose Cesar Enriquez, were outraged by the court's action. "We were hoping that (the suspects) would serve their sentences, because we were almost sure that they were the guilty ones," Pando said. Maintaining his innocence, Zendejas blamed his misfortune on the alleged lies of convicted codefendant Garcia, who has also been connected to the sexual assaults of three other young girls. Surviving three prison riots which left 17 dead inmates, Zendejas added that he could seek restitution from the state for moral and psychological damages.
Two other recent cases also cast doubt on women's prospects for justice in Ciudad Juarez. In late September, state Judge Neza Zuñiga decided that there wasn't enough evidence to charge Rafael Pineda Delgado with murder. Pineda claimed that last month's shooting death of his 20-year-old wife, Karla Ivonne Quiroz Bernal, was accidental.
"It happened when I was playing a joke on her," Pineda said. "I pointed the pistol at her, from which I had removed the bullets for cleaning, but a projectile got stuck in the magazine and caused her death." Quiroz left behind two young children.
Eyebrows were also raised in the city – even within the ranks of the PGJE – when a commander for the State Investigations Agency (AEI), the police department long responsible for investigating women's homicides, was ordered to undergo therapy instead of criminal prosecution for allegedly trying to strangle his girlfriend before attempting suicide. Jesus Eduardo Aleman Medina previously served in different posts in Palomas, Villa Ahumada and the Juarez Valley, but now reportedly is assigned to the AEI's special anti-kidnapping squad.
The legal developments in Ciudad Juarez came during an October 4 visit by German parliamentarians to the border city. Sponsored by the Chihuahua state government, the objective of the tour was to show the German lawmakers the supposed progress authorities are making in prosecuting crimes against women.
Prior to leaving Mexico, German Deputy Jurgen Klimke, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, was quoted as saying he felt deceived by victims' mothers who charge authorities with fostering impunity. Klimke said that it was important to get to the truth about the Ciudad Juarez femicides because a measure had been introduced in the Bundestag to advise German companies not to invest in Mexico.
While Klimke was departing Mexico, the PGJE announced that it had tentatively identified the remains of a suspected female murder victim discovered last month in the desert outside Ciudad Juarez. Press accounts reported that the remains likely belong to Irma Isabel Vargas, a 16-year-old employee of a Tres Hermanos shoe store who vanished in downtown Ciudad Juarez in 2005. Like Vargas, several other femicide victims worked or shopped in downtown shoe stores. No suspects have been publicly named in the Vargas case.
"This was a terrible blow to the family, because we all hoped that she was going to be found alive," said Vargas' aunt, Leticia Moreno Gallegos.
Meanwhile, other relatives of Ciudad Juarez femicide victims and their supporters spent Sunday, October 7, painting the familiar pink crosses on posts along the Camino Real highway that was recently opened on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.
"This activity keeps alive the memories of our daughters, and is a message to our authorities that we continue seeking justice," said Paula Flores, mother of 1998 murder victim Sagrario Gonzalez.
Sources: Norte, October 6 and 8, 2007. Articles by Carlos Huerta, Jorge Chairez Daniel and Felix Gonzalez. Frontenet.com, October 4 and 6, 2007. El Universal, October 5, 2007. Article by Luis Carlos Cano. El Diario de Juarez, September 25 and 30, 2007; October 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2007. Articles by Pedro Sanchez Briones, Armando Rodriguez and editorial staff. La Jornada, September 30, 2007. Article by Ruben Villalpando.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Frontera.NMSU.edu |
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