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March 09, 2008
The Other Side of the Coin: Brenda Martin
I have railed against the United States on multiple occasions in the past for their ongoing human rights violations (mostly through their use of torture with detainees), crowing about how Mexico seems to be improving its rights record. Yet Mexico's justice system is not without its faults.
I bring to your attention the case of Brenda Martin, a 51-year-old Canadian who has been held in a Mexican prison without trial for over two years. For 10 months, she was the cook for a man convicted of operating an Internet fraud in Puerto Vallarta. Five years after his arrest, she was picked up and thrown in jail; Mexican authorities have claimed that her severance package from the cooking job was a money laundering operation for the Internet fraud, but they have failed to provide any evidence of this by bringing the case to trial. The man convicted of the fraud has provided a sworn affidavit stating that Martin had no knowledge of his criminal activity, but that has not aided in her release.
Martin was promised a decision on a request by her lawyers to have all the charges thrown out because her legal and human rights were breached. Friday came and went, and no decision was handed down because the courts were apparently closed here. She had been placed on suicide watch last week, but was sedated and hospitalized on Saturday in an effort to keep her from killing herself.
Learn more at the Save Brenda Fund web site.
Posted by crispy at March 9, 2008 11:07 AM
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UPDATES
Monday: Mexican court denies Martin's constitutional challenge
Wednesday: Paul Martin finishes meeting with imprisoned Canadian in Mexico
Posted by: Chris Coen at March 12, 2008 01:47 PM