The release of Florence Cassez, the Frenchwoman sentenced to 60 years in prison for being part of a kidnapping gang, is being viewed as a victory for justice in her homeland but has divided opinion here in Mexico, where there is widespread belief that a foreigner has been given preferential treatment.
Soon after her return home, Cassez was revelling in her instant celebrity status, being touted on French television shows and meeting with President Francois Hollande and former President Nicolas Sarkosy, the latter for more than two hours. The two presidents had backed her unflinchingly and put bilateral relations at risk to ensure her release.
In Mexico, the court of public opinion took out its anger on the five Supreme Court judges who ordered Cassez’s release after seven years in prison, as well as a law enforcement system that stands accused of violating her rights and soiling the case against her.
For the French media, Cassez’s conviction and subsequent 60-year jail sentence was a miscarriage of justice. They see the Supreme Court decision as a vindication of her innocence, although the judges have stressed that their ruling was not about her conviction, and solely focused on the issue of her rights.In interviews since her release Cassez has repeated her innocence, while admitting she was “naive” in getting into a relationship with Israel Vallarta, the leader of the Zodiac kidnapping gang.
But many Mexicans still believe she is lying over whether she knew that three kidnapping victims were being held in the ranch in which she was living with Vallarta.
On the one hand, there are Mexicans who say the testimony of one of the victims, who said he heard her voice (in heavily accented French) while blindfolded and being held captive, should take precedence over any alleged human rights abuses by authorities in her case, in particular the strange “staging” of her arrest by a media outlet that actually took place 24 hours after her detention. This montage, the judges ruled, not only may have influenced public opinion against her but may have skewed witness testimony.
However, on the other side of the coin, there are those who believe the Supreme Court’s decision may be a blessing in disguise and will spur a needy repair of the Mexican justice system, in which it is widely acknowledged that the rights of many suspects and defendants are systematically violated.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court judges noted that the decision to release Cassez would have no bearing on the trials of other alleged members of the Zodiac gang, including Vallarta, who was also paraded before the cameras in the television montage in December 2005. Despite spending the same amount of time in prison as Cassez, Vallarta has yet to be sentenced. If he, and others, are now convicted, it may lead to more criticism that there is one law for foreigners and another for Mexicans.
In the aftermath of Cassez’s release, there have been repeated calls for a full investigation into the handling of her case, especially the role of the former Public Security Secretary in the Felipe Calderon administration, Genaro Garcia Luna, who now lives in Miami, Florida.
Garcia Luna is believed to have had undue influence in the case, and has yet to deny an accusation that he approved the bizarre television montage of her arrest.