Claudio Benjamín Martínez, 41, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of femicide against his cousin Esther Damaris Martínez Alanís, 34, which occurred on January 5 in the sector known as La Bomba, in the town of Santa Faith in the municipality of Chichigalpa.
The Prosecutor’s Office explained that Claudio Martínez committed the double crime in complicity with José Esteban Morales Martínez, 27, who died in prison while waiting to be brought to trial on March 9. The judicial sentence was in charge of Dr. Juan de Dios González, second judge of the Chinandega Criminal Trial District.
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Martínez, in addition to being sentenced to life imprisonment, was also added six years in prison, three for stealing the victim’s cell phone and three for desecrating his corpse.
They affirm that the subject harassed his cousin for several months, who at all times rejected Martíes’ intentions. But it was last October when he came to live at Esther’s mother’s house that she continued the intimidation despite the fact that she left the house in December to commit the crime in January.
One day before the crime was committed, the defendant showed up at Martínez’s house, finding her together with her 8 and 10-year-old children. He offered them two sodas, tortillas, half a chicken and 200 córdobas, however, she rejected him. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Claudio became enraged at the rejection of his cousin and as he left he told her vengefully that she “hadn’t gotten to know him well yet.”
On the day of the crime, the subjects watched Esther and, around five in the morning on Thursday, when the merchant was going to work, the alleged femicides intercepted her in a sugarcane field in the known sector of La Bomba.
At the scene, they intimidated her with a knife and put her into some bushes where they suffocated her with a rope. The men could not rape the woman because they heard residents walking through the sector, so they fled.
Martínez Alaniz leaves two children, 10 and 8 years old, orphaned. According to feminist organizations, she was the first victim of femicide in 2023.
