Man spent 21 years in prison for crime that never happened: alleged victim lived in the United States

Mexican Manuel Valdovinos he was tortured to confess to a crime he did not commit. After passing by 21 years in prison for murder, he benefited from an amnesty law and became free. But this legal measure did not remove his “criminal record”. For justice, he is still a man with a criminal past.

But Valdovinos, a humble music teacher, never committed a crime. Is innocent. He was convicted in 2003 of the murder of a young man his age. Three years later, it was discovered that the body did not match that of the victim. But he was still detained. Until now… when his family found the “murdered” young man alive in the United States.

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The man was released last Saturday. This Tuesday, he spoke to the press and told his sad story. In a brief account he said that the authorities did not even ask for forgiveness and he denounced that he also had a “criminal record” which prevents him from aspiring to certain jobs.

“It was not a reinstatement, It was a joke“he claimed.

His case now shocks all of Mexico.

The campaign for his release

After finding the “victim” in the United States, the family launched a campaign to demand the release of Valdovinos.

The complaints reached the National Congress. Then, on May 27, MP Pedro César Carrizales, aka El Mijis, and activist Bryan LeBaron, began a hunger strike in front of the National Palace, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador resides, to demand the release of Valdovinos.

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After analyzing the case, the Special Commission for the Control of the Amnesty Law of the State of Mexico decided the immediate release of Valdovinos, who was received by his family at the gates of Almoloya de Juárez prison.

In his statements to reporters, he said that “Mexico is a country where justice is upside down. Those of us who must have justice have evasions and arbitrariness. If they don’t put pressure on the hunger strike, I’m not here today, ”he said.

How was the case

Valdovinos worked as a music teacher in the town of Texcoco, on the outskirts of Mexico City. On May 26, 2000, he was arrested. To his surprise, he was charged with the murder of a young man. He was then 21 years old.

According to the complaint, eight judicial police officers violently entered his home and extracted a confession under torture. The newspaper The day revealed that “in a warehouse They hung him on chains, beat him and gave him electric shocks.Then they put it in a pot of ice water so that the attacks would not be noticed ”.

Before midnight, he was presented to the prosecution with a confession made by hand by the police themselves and signed by Valdovinos after the torture.

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Man has always claimed to be innocent. But in 2003 he was sentenced to 41 years in prison. But three years later it has been proven, through DNA test, that he corpse did not match the alleged victim of Valdovinos.

However, justice rejected the evidence and the man remained in jail for another 18 years until his family finally found the person he allegedly murdered two decades ago in the United States.

Valdovinos said that during his years in prison he saw “many people who, without legal support, had their freedom”. He even said that his suffering was so great that he would have preferred to “be left dead” in the torture chamber.