Santiago del Estero: woman who killed her baby after giving birth receives life sentence

SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO.- Feminist and human rights organizations analyze the decision rendered this morning, in which life imprisonment to a woman who, in 2017, she gave birth to her son, alone and unassisted, then suffocated him with a rag. He then dumped it into an internal irrigation canal in the town of El Zanjón, about 15 kilometers from this capital.

María Teresa Díaz admitted during the oral debate, which took place virtually, that it was she who had thrown the body of the newborn baby and who had concealed her pregnancy. At the trial, we learned that the young woman had indicated that she did not remember if it was she who had killed her son, because, according to the reconstruction, judicial sources could have been “in a state of shock”, after having given birth to her baby in the house where she worked as a domestic worker.

El Zanjón is an area near the center of the capital where there are weekend houses. The sentenced woman today worked in one of them and gave birth in the barbecue bathroom, where, according to the findings of the judges of the Oral Criminal Court, María Eugenia Carabajal, Daniela Campos Nittinger and Luis Domínguez, supported by the results After the autopsy, Díaz suffocated his newborn son with a “strip of tissue”, He placed it in several nylon bags and threw it into the bed of an irrigation canal in the area.

The incident happened on December 18, 2017 and, at the time, raised alarm bells among various local feminist organizations since, at the time, they anticipated that “we might be faced with a case similar to that of Romina Tejerina ”, the young woman from Jujuy, sentenced to 14 years in prison for the murder of her newborn daughter with 21 stab wounds in 2005 and who was released in 2012 after a review of her sentence.

The Santiago court did not hesitate to sentence Díaz to life imprisonment, finding her guilty of the crime of “homicide aggravated by bond”, to the detriment of her newborn son. Local feminist organizations are on “alert” and are taking advice on decision considerations to accompany a conviction appeal.

Prosecutor María Alejandra Holgado, clarified THE NATION that, on the basis of evidence, they asked for the maximum sentence, because “there were no extraordinary circumstances which would allow the sentence to be alleviated”. And he stressed: “Fortunately, the court ruled in this regard after analyzing all of the above.”

<< What has been credited is the homicide qualified by the link, since the accused gave birth in the house of his employers and hanged him to death with a cloth tie or napkin, then had him thrown, wrapped in several nylon bags, in a channel in the surface. The neighbors found half of the body, since the other half was eaten by dogs in the area, ”said Holgado.

In dialogue with THE NATION, Marianella Lezama Hid, local coordinator of Women for the Latin American Matria (Mumala), said: “We are aware of the case and we are working to have legal perspectives, to see to make this case visible and to try to accompany a call.” In principle, Hid preferred caution in comparing this sentence with that of Tejerina because “she killed the son of her rapist, it has been proven, but in this case we still do not know if it was the same here” .