Mexican man spent 20 years in jail for a murder that never happened

In Mexico, a man was released after spending 21 years in jail for a homicide that never occurred. Manuel Valdovinos regained his freedom through an amnesty law after being accused of murdering a person who is alive and who lives in USA.

“This was not a reintegration, it was a joke,” Valdovinos told reporters after being released from jail. And he assured: “I don’t want revenge, I want justice; I do not speak for myself: I speak for the thousands who live the same as me”.

On May 27, the Mexican deputy Pedro Cesar Carrizales next to the activist Bryan LeBaron started a hunger strike so that Valdovinos can regain his freedom. In front of the National Palace, located in DF, both demonstrated for the injustice that the imprisonment of the man implied.

After analyzing the case, the Special Commission for Monitoring the Amnesty Law of the State of Mexico ruled that the prisoner be released, who finally managed to leave the Almoloya de Juárez prison.

At the gates of the jail, the press waited for Valdovinos along with a group of relatives and friends of the detainee. “Mexico is a country where justice is backwards,” the man told reporters.

“Those of us who must have justice have evasions and arbitrariness. If they had not exerted pressure with the hunger strike, I would not be here today,” he said, in relation to the demonstration that Carrizales and LeBaron began days ago.

Before being charged with murder, Valdovinos worked as a music teacher in the city of Texcoco. In May 2000, the man was arrested and, three years later, received a 41-year prison sentence for allegedly murdering a man.

The man’s family set out to find out the whereabouts of the man who, in theory, was attacked, and discovered that he was well alive in the United States.

In dialogue with the Mexican press, the man considered that his 21 years in prison were “torture” and declared that, during that term, he saw many detainees regain their freedom without any “legal support”.

Shocked, the man related that during those two decades he lost his son and several loved ones and that, for a long time, he had no desire to continue with his life.

“I will forgive because it is convenient for me to be truly free; I will continue because I still have life, I will tell my story until the last word of my soul is exhausted. It will be the way to heal me”, he declared.