NINE YEARS FOR SETTING FIRE TO DAUGHTERS RAPIST

In 1998 María del Carmen García of Benejuzar was sentenced to nine years in prison for setting fire to her 13 year old daughters rapist, having first doused him in petrol. The man died several days after the incident from the severity of his burns.

The women spent a year in custody during which time the Supreme Court reduced the sentence to five years on appeal, thereby reducing the penalty by two degrees. Having served 12 months in prison Garcia was subsequently released on parole while an appeal based on her mental disorder was considered but her lawyer said that she could be readmitted at any time. Her husband is currently suffering from throat cancer.

The District court was asked by the lawyer, Joaquín Galant, to suspend any further imprisonment until the outcome of the Supreme Court decision on the appeal was known. However the court has now refused to Snr Galant’s request and the woman has been told that she must return to prison.

The family says that it is “absolutely devastated” and it does not understand why the request to wait for the Supreme Court decision was not approved. Sources close to the case said that Maria del Carmen Garcia is also “desolate.”

María del Carmen García must now serve her sentence of five years in prison and although the prosecution had endorsed a partial pardon of half of the sentence, the Council of Ministers refused to grant the further measure of grace. This would have been enough to stop her imprisonment, as the woman had already spent a year in custody.

Galant has again appealed the decision to the Supreme considering it “discriminatory” and he has requested that pending resolution of this appeal her imprisonment was suspended. However, the District Court did not accept the request. The decision of the Court does not specify on what date she will have to return to prison to continue serving her sentence, although it seems that incarceration is imminent.

Local residents have already handed a petition bearing 5,000 signatures in to Judicial authorities in Elche to support an application for her pardon

One of the arguments presented by counsel in the appeal proceedings before the Supreme Court is that Carmen García should be granted the same measure of clemency as that granted to those convicted of serious matters such as the kamikaze driver who killed a young Valencian man after driving for several miles down a motorway in the wrong direction.

Meanwhile both the mayors of Alicante and Elche have come out in support of Carmen Garcia.

“We must not allow her to re-enter the prison” said Sonia Castedo, Mayor of Alicante (PP) “It is true that under the rule of law no one can or should take the law into their own hands but, as a mother, I wholeheartedly support the clemency petition. This woman has already gone through two prisons: one of which she is out of and we must not allow re-entry. The other is her mind and the guilt she suffers from which she will never be free.”

“I am in favor of a pardon” said Mercedes Alonso, Mayor of Elche (PP) “We must respect and obey the law, but, as a woman and mother, this is a situation in which the mother should be granted clemency. You have to understand the feelings of the woman when she confronted her daughter’s rapist, and although that does not justify what she did, I think that as she has already spent a year in the prison I am in favor of a pardon.”

María Angustias Oliveras is the Head of Psychiatry at the Hospital de Sant Joan. She is the psychiatrist who is treating Mari Carmen and has acted as an expert witness for the defense in the case. She too says that she fully supports a pardon. “The suffering of the family over the years has been appalling and the rapist had even threatened to go back to hurt the girl. Moreover, Maria had not intended to kill him, she just wanted to scare him. This was very much an isolated incident. Maria has already been severely punished and there is no possibility that she will ever return to crime, she is on medication and her life has been completely shattered. This is reason enough to grant clemency.”

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