Blanche Petrich
La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, October 28, 2024, p. 16
Nieves Aguilar Barragán and her husband Juan Camacho Ramos fought an arduous battle against the judicial system for the last 11 years to achieve full justice for the feminicide of their daughter Sandra Camacho Aguilar. Last week, they finally arrived with their case and their demand to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.
We owe it to our Sandy
says Nieves, his mother, a primary school teacher in Ixtapaluca. She describes her daughter: the joy of the house, a 10-year-old girl in primary school, the girl who finished high school at 17 years old. She was about to begin her career as a nutritionist at a Mexican university; He liked mole, swinging in the hammock, dancing and cooking. Her grandparents adored her.
Defense lawyer Rodolfo Domínguez, specialized in femicide cases, remembers that when he met Juan and Nieves, these deeply hurt parents were fighting a very complex legal fight alone, without advice or financial resources and in the midst of the usual media noise that found plenty of material for sensationalism in the case of the dismembered young woman of Tlatelolco
by a genius
.
They started with a great risk of impunity
says Domínguez. The perpetrator, Javier Méndez Ovalle – he was 19 years old on the date of the crime – had managed to have his case classified as homicide, with a lesser sentence, and that the sexual attack and the extreme violence exercised against the woman were not explicitly mentioned in the file. girl.
He was not tortured
The perpetrator’s defense alleged that Javier He was just another boyfriend of Sandra’s.
(false), that at the time of the attack the subject was seized by a violent emotion
who did not have an adequate defense and who was tortured
. An expert opinion with the Istanbul protocol demonstrated the opposite. He was not tortured.
Méndez even enjoyed the sympathy of the authorities. The first prosecutor in charge, Claudia Cañizo, expressed empathy for the alleged feminicide, hardworking, educated
referring to the person who had raped and strangled a girl he had just met and taken to his apartment. Then he cut her body into pieces, put them in plastic bags and dispersed them in several trash cans in the Tlatelolco unit.
Judge Fernando Guerrero Zárate, of the seventh court, who despite the appeals for disagreement reclassified the case as homicide on two occasions, reproached Sandra’s parents in one of the proceedings: You, this young boy, are ruining his life with a whole future ahead of him.
.
Reduced the prison sentence from 60 to 50 years. and set a damage repair
for the amount paid in cases of death due to a work accident. For Juan and Nieves, it was a re-victimizing and discriminatory resolution. In successive court rulings it was always held that the young people had consensual sexual relations
according to Méndez’s version. Forensic reports that documented injuries consistent with a violent sexual attack were ignored.
Sandy, our flag for a life free of violence
Although it is a final sentence, Sandra Camacho’s family managed to get the Supreme Court to approve the appeal of the case in April of this year after tireless efforts to achieve a sentence that not only punishes the perpetrator, but also establishes a legal precedent for make justice more effective under the obligatory gender perspective in cases of feminicide. They also demand that the reparation for the damage be not only monetary, but comprehensive, restoring the truth and dignity of the victim.
Establish jurisdiction
Now they hope that their daughter’s story will establish a more advanced jurisdiction, a flag for a life free of violence for women
says his mother.
Irinea Buendía, protagonist of another of the great judicial battles to obtain justice for the feminicide of her daughter Mariana Lima (she was 28 years old when she was murdered by her husband in 2010), assures that this is a crucial issue. Expresses: When they deny us reparation for the comprehensive damage, they deny us as victims, they treat us as if we only wanted to take their money. What we demand is to cleanse the memory of our daughters (initially Mariana’s case was judged as suicide; in Sandra’s case as the homicide of a woman defamed in the media). Faced with the dirt that was disclosed, the judges have to set a precedent of truth
.
Lawyer Domínguez explains: If the case of Mariana Lima was essential to establish jurisdiction over how to investigate feminicide, that of Sandra Camacho must establish obligations for the courts on how to judge this crime
.
Ministers must set a precedent for judges and magistrates to overcome the bad practices that, as in this case, insisted on classifying the crime as homicide, with lesser prison sentences and above all ignoring all the elements of extreme sexual violence and destructive treatment and degrading of the perpetrator.
He must also resolve the malpractice in the third Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City that justified the extreme violence exercised against the 17-year-old girl. because he was exposed to a risky situation
.
Genius?
Two days after murdering Sandra Camacho in an apartment on the tenth floor of the Presidente Juárez building in Tlatelolco, property of his parents, Javier fled Mexico City when he learned that his mother, Virginia Ovalle, was taken before a Public Ministry to testify. . He managed to survive under a false name in San Luis Potosí until he was arrested 16 months later and admitted to the North Prison.
For many media outlets, the profile of the young feminicide attracted more attention than the tragedy of the victim. The headlines of the time talk about genius
he model student
he math champion
. The frenzy of sensationalism culminated in a report published by the magazine emequis with a large display of photographs of young Méndez receiving awards. Its author, Alejandro Sánchez González, describes it as son of a family educated in effort, with superior academic performance
. Sandra, the victim, is profiled as a girl who can’t define what to do
after failing to pass the admission exam for a career (also false). Fantasize about being an aide-de-camp
the reporter fantasizes.
His assessment of the feminicide contrasts with what the prison psychologists and experts concluded after numerous analyzes of his personality. These confirm that Méndez Ovalle has an average mental quotient
; that unfolds an overrated attitude towards oneself
and has a narcissistic profile with an important conflict with the female figure and the sexual area
.
From the autopsy of the body fragments that were found, it is clear that a violent sexual attack occurred that left injuries in the genital area, that there were injuries indicative of fighting and instinctive defense maneuvers of the victim
(which contradicts the version of a consensual relationship, as the feminicide maintains and the reporter from emequis). Death is caused by strangulation. Regarding the fragmentation of Sandra’s body, the experts conclude that due to the shape of the cuts (with a kitchen knife) the perpetrator had prior knowledge of human anatomy to be able to disarticulate thoracic and pelvic limbs
.
The responsibility of Méndez Ovalle in the way he lured the young woman to his apartment, sexually attacked her and strangled her was fully accredited by the forensic chemistry and genetic opinions that identify the perpetrator’s DNA at the scene. The presence of blood with Sandra’s DNA was determined with chemical tests (luminol) in the living room, kitchen and terrace and on a pair of scissors and a knife from the kitchen of the apartment in the Tlatelolco unit, owned by the Méndez family. Oval.
Now the first room of the SCJN has the floor.
