2023-05-26 03:33:45
- Writing
- BBC News World
image source, Maria Belen Bernal
The crime of María Belén Bernal shocked Ecuadorian society.
Former Ecuadorian police lieutenant Germán Cáceres was sentenced this Thursday for the murder of his wife, lawyer María Belén Bernal, a case that shocked the South American country.
Cáceres will have to face now 34 years and 8 months in prison for the femicide of Bernalthe maximum penalty in Ecuador for this crime, local media reported.
“I feel satisfied because it is the maximum that the norm determines. However, this does not give me back to my María Belén. I will continue on the streets,” said Bernal’s mother, Elizabeth Otavalo, at a press conference after learning of the ruling.
At the end of last year, the Ecuadorian authorities reported the capture of Cáceres, who was fugitive in Colombia.
In that instance, the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, said that he would receive “the full weight of the law.”
The case of Bernal, 34, shocked Ecuador on September 11 of last year, when the lawyer disappeared after entering the Higher School of Policein the north center of Quito, to meet her husband.
The first to report Bernal’s disappearance was her mother, who since then began a campaign to find her daughter, in addition to denouncing the alleged negligence on the part of the authorities.
“Where is María Belén Bernal?” asked the media and chanted protesters in the streets, mostly women, while the Prosecutor’s Office revealed that Cáceres had fled.
Days later, Bernal’s body was found lifeless on a hill near the police complex.
Lasso went so far as to offer a reward for anyone who offered information that would allow Cáceres to be located, and ordered the search operation to be reinforced to solve a case that raised doubts about the actions of the police and put the focus back on violence against women.
respected lawyer
María Belén Bernal was 34 years old, originally from Quito and had studied law at the Universidad Central’s School of Jurisprudence, in addition to completing a master’s degree in Oral Litigation at the California Western School of Law.
She had managed to become a respected litigator, in a field where she was recognized for her extensive knowledge of criminal proceedings.
image source, RODRIGO BUENDIA/Getty
Protesters had demanded answers from the Police.
One of the best-known cases that he had to face was the representation of the family of Alejandro Páliz, who died in March 2021 after being run over by a patrol from the Quito Metropolitan Transit Agency.
In that case, according to local media, Bernal managed to demonstrate the responsibility that the agents had had, with an untimely maneuver that prevented Páliz’s reaction to avoid the accident.
At the time of her disappearance, the lawyer worked for the firm Defensa Penal Group and was part of a group of six women who handle cases that focus mainly on criminal matters.
Bernal had also handled cases of sexual assault, gender violence, defense of the police, alimony and others, according to the Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo.
Bernal was aware that his work as a criminal lawyer had made him enemies.
In fact, in mid-2022, through a publication on the TikTok social network, he had given two names that he held responsible in advance if something happened to him.
However, as soon as her disappearance became known, the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office discarded the two names that she had indicated in the video, after establishing that the main suspect in the case was her husband, Lieutenant Cáceres.
According to local media, Cáceres and Bernal had married in 2017.
The couple lived in the Conocoto area, in the south of Quito, with Issac, 13, the son of Bernal’s previous relationship.
image source, Getty Images
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