The Ecuadorian is playing one of his last cards to save himself from the death penalty, to which he was sentenced in the United States for a quadruple murder, of which he has always declared himself innocent.
MIAMI.- The family and defense of the Ecuadorian Nelson Serranowho to his 83 years old is the oldest man on death row in Florida (USA), They defended this February 18, 2022, in an act in Miami, their innocence and asked the state governor, Ron DeSantis, to “investigate” the case and learn about the numerous human rights violations that were committed.
In the act in favor of Serrano, sentenced to death for a quadruple murder in Bartow, Florida in 1997of which he has always declared himself innocent, participated Greg Eisenmenger, Ecuadorian’s lawyer, who recalled that he was sentenced to death without a unanimous jury (9-3) and that “There is convincing evidence of his innocence.”
Eisenmenger censured the “serious delays” that have been taking place in the Justice Department in Florida to proceed with the Serrano sentence review (for life imprisonment or unanimous confirmation of the death penalty), which should have taken place in 2017.
How did Serrano get to this?
Francis Serrano, son of the octogenarian imprisoned on the death row of the Raiford prisonin Florida, summarized the chronological sequence of events that led to his father’s conviction and referred to the “determining evidence that exonerates him” of the murders, adding that the State “has hidden” them, in addition to the “DNA evidence and eyewitness testimony.”
He recalled, at the event held at the Florida International University (FIU), that his father is practically deaf, with serious vision and heart problemswho he does not receive the medical care he needs in prison “Because they don’t provide it.”
The ones known as “Bartow Crimes” Florida city where they were produced, they took place in 1997, in a company in which Serrano was a partner, for which he was sentenced in 2006 to four death sentencesdespite the fact that Serrano was in Atlanta on the day they occurred.
In a virtual appearance from Ecuador, the country’s attorney general, Iñigo Salvador, described Serrano as “victim of a kind of kidnapping by US authorities in Ecuadorian territory” and expressed his “intimate conviction” that his compatriot “has the right to a fair trial.”
Illegally brought from Ecuador
Nelson Serrano “has the right to a fair trial in light of the evidence from the process in which he was sentenced to death,” Salvador affirmed, adding that the Ecuadorian State “decided to assume the responsibilities” derived from the “illegality of its deportation process” To united states.
Three years after the murders, Serrano, who was investigated as a suspect but never charged, he retired and returned to Quito free of charge.
But in 2002, two US agents bribedas Serrano’s son told EFEto Ecuadorian policemen to take him to the United States “without the knowledge of the authorities already hidden”.
“He was kidnapped, in violation of human rights and without due process,” he said.
The Ecuadorian state attorney general insisted that Serrano “couldn’t have been taken out like that”that “he must be returned to his country of origin” and that Extradition treaties were “not respected” by the United States.
Roberto Serrano, 57, asked Governor DeSantis for a “hearing to inform him of what has happened” with his father, “of the kidnapping and violations of his rights.”
“We want (DeSantis) launch a detailed and prompt investigation” on the report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on Florida, “for violation of the rights” of my father, told Efe.
The act had as one of the goals that Republican Governor Ron DeSantis urge justice to dispatch without further delay the resources to review the sentence and that the court set a date for the hearing.
dying in prison
Serrano’s image is that of a health undermined in prison. Virtually deaf, with severe vision and heart problems.
a little over a week ago his wife diedMaría del Carmen Pólit, in a hospital in Florida, victim of a very aggressive cancer of the tongue. He was not allowed to visit her. He, too, couldn’t say goodbye to her over the phone. In the Raiford prison (Florida) he was told that they did not have special telephones for the deaf at that time.
To the physical defeat is added the running from the clock to his sentence: execution by lethal injection. Perhaps it is worse for Serrano this slow death in life, isolated, with hardly any human contact, on death row. EFE
