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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2008 
Mexico Says Jailed Canadian Confessed
 Charles Rusnell - edmontonjournal.com
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| | Liberal consular affairs critic Dan McTeague with Brenda Martin inside the Puente Grande Women's Prison in Guadalajara, Mexico, in this undated photo. (Glenn Bradbury/Canwest News) | | |
'I never admitted to anything because I have done nothing wrong,' says Brenda Martin
Mexican authorities are now claiming that a Canadian woman who has been imprisoned without trial for more than two years signed a statement in which she confessed to her alleged crimes.
But Brenda Martin said she confessed to nothing.
"I told them I was innocent," Martin said in a telephone interview Friday from a Guadalajara prison. "I don't know what I signed because it was in Spanish. Nothing was ever translated into English for me and I never had a proper interpreter. But I never admitted to anything because I have done nothing wrong."
The claim that Martin confessed to charges of money laundering and being part of a criminal conspiracy surfaced for the first time earlier this week, when a Mexican judge ruled against Martin's constitutional challenge - called an amparo - to have the charges against her thrown out. Her lawyers had argued that her legal rights under Mexican and international law were violated because she was not provided with a translator by police during their investigator or during the court process.
Martin said Mexican police told her in 2001 that she was only a witness in a criminal case involving her former employer. She gave two voluntary statements to police. For the first, police used a fellow employee at the Puerto Vallarta jewelry store, where Martin worked, as a translator. For the second, Martin, who knows only rudimentary Spanish, had no translator.
Guillermo Cruz Rico, Martin's Toronto-based lawyer, said he was shocked that the judge in the amparo case somehow ruled that she had confessed to the charges.
"I reviewed the documents (Martin's statements to police) and she never admitted she was part of a criminal organization," Cruz said Friday. "She did not say she was guilty of anything. She said she got money from her employer and she did not know that it came from a criminal organization."
Martin, now 51, was employed as a chef for a former Albertan, Alyn Richard Waage, in Puerto Vallarta for 10 months in 2001. Waage was operating an Internet fraud scheme at the time though he pretended to be an investor. He was eventually arrested and is serving a 10-year sentence in an American jail. Five years after Waage's arrest, Martin was charged with money laundering and being part of a criminal conspiracy. Although Waage has provided a sworn affidavit stating Martin had no involvement or knowledge of his operations she has remained in jail since Feb. 17, 2006.
"I looked at the judge's interpretation and it looks to me like she is just trying to justify the case brought by the attorney general," Cruz said
Cruz and his father, who is one of Mexico's top lawyers, filed an 80-page document outlining their arguments in the amparo. Cruz said the judge, who issued an 800-page ruling in response, did not refer to any of the evidence presented in Martin's legal brief.
Cruz said he will file an appeal of the amparo ruling, despite the fact that Martin was warned not to do so by a Mexican justice official.
Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos flew to Guadalajara from Mexico City to personally deliver the news that Martin's amparo application had failed. Canada's consular-general in Mexico, Robin Dubeau, acted as interpreter at the meeting. Dubeau gave Martin's childhood friend, Debra Tieleman, a briefing on the meeting based on notes he had taken. According to Dubeau, Santiago told Martin her amparo application was groundless and that filing an appeal would lengthen her time in jail by at least five months.
Santiago also told her he had discussed her case with the judge in her criminal case and was told that judge had already written the judgment, despite the fact that Martin's lawyers had yet to file their defence in that case.
Cruz said he has learned that Santiago is the same justice official who headed the special police unit that investigated the scam that led to Martin's arrest, which was based in part on the statements Martin gave without the benefit of either an interpreter or legal representation. He then became responsible for prosecuting the case.
Cruz said Santiago's visit to Martin was "quite irregular." He said he will consider filing a complaint against Santiago but for now he is concentrating the appeal.
"The only thing we are asking for is a fair trial and fair treatment for Brenda Martin," Cruz said. "We want an impartial entity to review the amparo because if we have to go back to the criminal case, we think we have very little chance of winning."
For the second straight day, Foreign Affairs Minister refused to comment on Martin's treatment by Santiago.
Liberal consular services critic Dan McTeague said it's clear that the "fix is in" in Martin's case and he called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to personally intervene with Mexican president Felipe Calderon to immediately secure Martin's release.
crusnell(at)thejournal.canwest.com |
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