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 Editorials | Issues | December 2007 
Mexican Ambassador Visits Jailed Canadian
 Charles Rusnell - Edmonton Journal
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| | Brenda Martin at the Puente Grande prison on Dec. 5 (Deb Tieleman) |
Edmonton - A Canadian woman jailed in Mexico for nearly two years is furious that consular officials are now offering her unsolicited legal advice after they failed to ensure her rights under international law were respected.
"Where were they 22 months ago when I needed their help?" Brenda Martin said in a telephone interview today from Puente Grande prison in Guadalajara.
Martin and her new lawyer, Guillermo Cruz Rico of Toronto, publicly criticized Canadian consular officials earlier this week for failing to ensure she was provided with an approved translator either during the police investigation or the protracted legal process, a breach of her most basic legal rights under Mexican and international law.
Cruz convinced a judge in Guadalajara Tuesday to have the criminal charges against Martin put on hold until a Mexican judge rules on whether her constitutional rights were violated.
Martin said a senior Canadian consular official in Guadalajara told her on Wednesday that the constitutional challenge would significantly delay the resolution of her criminal case.
In a telephone interview from Guadalajara, Cruz said he thinks the consular official's call shows they are concerned about their lack of advocacy on Martin's behalf.
"I think they made that statement to Brenda to put her in a difficult situation," Cruz said. "The idea they had was that they want Brenda to drop (the constitutional challenge)."
Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Dan McTeague has been working to free Martin for the past year. He said the advice provided to Martin by the consular official was inappropriate.
"If it is true, it is unseemly for a consular official to effectively be telling her that she should not be insisting on her basic rights under international law," he said. "I think (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper has some explaining to do about this."
A Foreign Affairs spokesman today declined to respond directly to McTeague's allegation.
"Canadian officials continue to raise her case with local authorities on a regular basis, and are in contact with her legal advisors who are following this case closely," Foreign Affairs spokesman Shawn Tinkler said today.
Tinkler said the department could make no further comment about Martin's case due to the privacy act.
Martin, a native of Trenton, Ont., was arrested and jailed in February 2006, nearly five years after her former employer, Edmontonian Alyn Richard Waage, was arrested in what was believed to be the biggest Internet-based pyramid fraud scheme in history.
Between 1999 and 2001, Waage pulled in about $60 million US from 15,000 victims worldwide. He operated the scheme from a cliff-side mansion in Puerto Vallarta.
Martin, who had worked as a chef and caterer in Puerto Vallarta for several years, was hired as Waage's chef and house manager. She worked for him for 10 months.
Waage, who is serving 10 years in an American prison, swore an affidavit before Mexican officials attesting to Martin's innocence. Despite that, Martin has languished in prison on charges of money laundering and being part of a criminal conspiracy.
Martin and her supporters say that since her arrest, she has effectively been held hostage by the Mexican justice system because she could not get proper legal representation - at least four lawyers asked for large sums of money to pay bribes to justice officials.
Without a proper translator, she didn't know what the evidence was against her and what was happening with the seemingly interminable court process.
Two weeks ago, a friend who went to high school with Martin in Trenton learned of her plight from a Journal story she found on the Internet.
Deb Tieleman, a businesswoman from Waterloo, Ont., immediately set to work to help her friend.
She hired Cruz, who works in the Toronto office of high-profile Canadian lawyer Eddie Greenspan. He and his father, a senior lawyer in Mexico City, are working with Greenspan on the high-profile case of Dominic and Nancy Ianiero, the Toronto couple murdered in Cancun in 2006.
After a cursory review of Martin's case, Cruz said it was clear she was not provided with an interpreter by police investigators or by the Mexican court system, a breach of the Mexican constitution and international law.
Cruz found that Mexican police told Martin she was only a witness and she was never informed she was a suspect. Despite this, the statements she gave voluntarily were later used as evidence to support her arrest.
Cruz and Tieleman have since traveled to Guadalajara twice to visit Martin and review the court file. Cruz said in addition to the fact Martin's constitutional rights were violated, there is no credible evidence to support the charges against her.
"Brenda Martin has to be released, because unfortunately there has been a (miscarriage) of justice in this case," Cruz said. "I am confident that no Mexican court reviewing this brief could find her guilty of anything."
Tieleman was visiting her friend in prison on Wednesday when the Mexican ambassador to Canada, Emilio Goicoechea Luna, arrived with no prior notice to meet with Martin.
Accompanying the ambassador was a state human rights official, the head of the state's prison system and two lawyers. Tieleman immediately sent a taxi driver to fetch Cruz, who was in Guadalajara working on Martin's legal case.
"He seemed very genuinely concerned," Tieleman said, "and he promised to open any doors he could."
Tieleman said the two-hour meeting was videotaped by a government television crew, and a distraught Martin sobbed frequently and pleaded with the ambassador for help. At one point, she said, the ambassador suggested that Martin looked to be in good health.
"At that point, Brenda told him she was 50 years old and now weighed 94 pounds. She said she had lost 18 kilograms," Tieleman said.
McTeague, the Liberal critic, met with Goicoechea two weeks ago in Ottawa about Martin's case.
"I have got to give him credit," McTeague said today. "He promised to personally look into Brenda Martin's case and he has kept his word. Let's hope his involvement brings an end to this unfortunate case."
Tieleman said both Mexican and Canadian officials should acknowledge the blatant abuse of Martin's rights.
"No Mexican citizen would ever be treated this way in Canada," Tieleman said. "The Canadian government should be insisting that Brenda be released immediately because she has clearly not been treated fairly according to international law."
crusnell(at)thejournal.canwest.com |
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