Source: CART Editorial
Author: David Bertet (President)
Collaboration: Andrea González
June 5th, 2015
Translation: JB for CART / ACDV (original version in Spanish)
Montreal, Canada,
June 5th, 2015
PRESS RELEASE
Ms. Atziri Ávila
Coordinator of the National Network of
Human Rights Activists in Mexico
Santo Tomas 209, Col. Xochimilco
C.P. 68040 Oaxaca, Mexico.
As President of the Canadian Association for Rights and Truth, receive a cordial greeting from the city of Montreal.
This is a follow-up to your open letter dated May 27, 2015, addressed to Mr. Jesús Ubando López, Thirty-Second Criminal Trial Judge of the Superior Court of Justice of the Federal District, in which organizations part of the National Network of Human Rights Activists in Mexico are in favour of the release of Mrs. Lorena González Hernández who is being held and deprived of her freedom since September 5, 2008, in the Women’s Social Rehabilitation Centre of Santa Martha Acatitla, accused of participating in the abduction and child murder of Fernando Martí Haik, son of the renowned businessman Alejandro Martí.
While it is true that we commend your action in favour of Mrs. Lorena González Hernández, of whom the National Network alleges violations of her fundamental rights and the alleged manufacture of the crime charged by the Judicial Police of the Attorney General of Justice of the Federal District, we want to mention a point on which we wish to express our profound disagreement with the defense strategy that they decided to implement.
It concerns what in their open letter reads as follows: “It is also our understanding that at the federal level María Elena Ontiveros Mendoza has been indicted and has confessed as being the person who actually participated in the child kidnapping of Fernando Martí Haik, as well as maintaining such acceptance of responsibility before the local investigating authorities, which aim to support the duplicate charge, because both Mrs. Lorena González Hernández and María Elena Ontiveros Mendoza are being tried for exactly the same thing as if they were a single person; however, contrary to the situation of Lorraine, there is evidence attesting to the criminal responsibility of María Elena Ontiveros Mendoza.”
They claim that María Elena Mendoza Ontiveros, whom federal police gave her the nickname of “the blonde one,” is the person who actually participated in the kidnapping of the son of Alejandro Martí. If it is true that it is their understanding that María Elena Ontiveros has been indicted for the same crime, it should be also be their understanding that the woman in question was severely tortured by agents of the federal police under the orders of Luis Cárdenas Palomino, that the torture session was followed by her display to the media by the same “investigating authority,” and that it can be seen in the videos showing María Elena Ontiveros that she can barely walk when she is asked to step forward to face the television cameras in an exhibition session, which violates the sacred presumption of innocence, to which you refer in your letter, a characteristic of the practices of media setup by the federal police when they were under the command of Genaro García Luna.
In view of that, their strategy of trying to defend the innocence and the honour of Mrs. Lorena González Hernández through the direct accusation of María Elena Ontiveros makes them participate in the violation of human rights that they pretend to defend and promote. Organizations advocating human rights should not talk of alleged confessions by an indicted person such as María Elena Ontiveros when these statements were clearly extracted under torture and used by the federal police under the command of Luis Cárdenas Palomino to continue manufacturing culprits. Neither calling for the release of Mrs. Lorena González Hernández authorizes them to express their views on the alleged guilt of María Elena Ontiveros. The files that our Association has on the María Elena Ontiveros case point towards her innocence; therefore, we are respectfully asking you that your work in favour of Mrs. Lorena González Hernández no longer continue harming the person we are defending.
It is not our role to express any opinion on the guilt or innocence of Mrs. Lorena González Hernández. However, I hope that the members of your network have the same inclination to investigate the case of the victims in the Wallace case, such as Brenda Quevedo Cruz and Juana Hilda Lomelí, on whom, to our knowledge, they have not acted so far, and the fact that the author of the fictional biography of Isabel Miranda Wallace, Martin Moreno, is one of the most active defenders of Mrs. Lorena González Hernández does not prevent your organizations to continue doing their work defending the human rights of vulnerable, innocent, unjustly imprisoned people and whose guilt was fabricated. In that same sense, I hope that you have noticed that people accused by Isabel Miranda de Wallace are clearly not only innocent but victims of a false kidnapping. If so, our Association will be in the best position to work together with you and become extensively informed of Mrs. Lorena González Hernández case to contribute to the dissemination of your work, should we share your conclusions.
Kind regards
DAVID BERTET
President of the Board of Directors
Canadian Association for Rights and Truth
