| | |  Editorials | Issues | September 2009 
Mexico Frees Indian Whose Jailing Sparked Uproar
 Associated Press
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September 17, 2009
| | Jacinto Francisco Marcial | |
Mexico City — An Indian market vendor whose kidnapping conviction sparked an international protest walked out of prison Wednesday after authorities decided not to contest an appeal of her 21-year sentence.
Jacinto Francisco Marcial's release was announced by the Mexico-based Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez human rights center, which has championed her defense.
Marcial served three years in prison after being convicted of kidnapping six federal agents.
Rights activists say her trial was full of irregularities, and that Marcial, an Otomi Indian, wasn't given access to an interpreter as required by law.
Marcial has denied that she was among 80 and 100 angry vendors who briefly held federal agents hostage in the central state of Queretaro in March 2006 after authorities raided a street market to confiscate pirated goods.
Amnesty International named her a prisoner of conscience and called for her release.
"Jacinta has been imprisoned solely due to her marginal status in society as a poor indigenous woman with limited access to justice," the London-based human rights organization said in a statement in August.
Marcial was released after the appeals process revealed "contradictions in the statements of federal agents," the federal attorney general's office said in a statement.
"From the evidence it is clear that some witnesses said they saw the defendant at the scene, others say they did not see her ... creating a reasonable doubt about her involvement," the statement said, adding that there is strong evidence against two other people convicted in the case. |
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