Many people in 19th century France believed fiercely in the innocence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly having communicated military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris.
So notable became “l’affaire Dreyfus” that leading intellectuals weighed in with their opinions. None was more esteemed than author Emile Zola, who pointed out the judicial errors and lack of serious evidence in the case in newspaper articles.
There are strong modern-day parallels with the case of Florence Cassez, the 37-year-old Frenchwoman serving 60 years in prison in Mexico for her part in the kidnapping of three people in 2005.
“L’affaire Cassez, as it is in known in France, has affected relations between Mexico and France at the highest level and like the Dreyfus Affair has divided a nation.
Another turn in this topsy-turvy case unfolded this week when a Mexican Supreme Court judge opened up a lifeline to Cassez by recommending that she be released immediately because her rights were violated.
The opinion of judge Arturo Zaldivar is not binding, however, and the five-member Supreme Court panel will make a final ruling in their review of the case on March 21. Mexican news sources say two justices are in favor of letting the verdict stand.
Cassez was arrested in December 2005 following a raid on her boyfriend’s ranch in the state of Morelos, where three kidnapping victims were being held captive, including a 15-year-old boy. The case received wide attention because the raid was broadcast on national television and the light-skinned, slim-figured Cassez did not fit the mold of the typical Mexican kidnapper.
Cassez argues that she knew nothing about the criminal activities of her boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, and has professed her innocence at all times, arguing that while living with him, she did not know that the kidnapping victims were being held in another part of the ranch.
The most damming evidence during the trial came from some of the kidnapping victims, who testified that Cassez injected them with sedatives and threatened to cut off their ears or fingers.Defense lawyers say the original testimony from the victims failed to mention Cassez, and that she was identified after they were coached by investigators.
It was later revealed that Cassez was actually arrested as she drove back to Mexico City from the ranch (where she had rented an apartment to live). She said she was kept overnight in a car and officers of the now-defunct Agencia Federal de Investigacion (AFI) took her back to the ranch for a televised “reenactment” of the raid the following day. Networks then broadcast scenes of the kidnap victims being released and Vallarta and Cassez being placed under arrest. Defense lawyers for Cassez say this was authorized by the federal government in a bid to be seen to making inroads into the wave of kidnappings plaguing Mexico.
Zaldivar said Cassez’s exposure to television cameras was “improper,” and also highlighted the lack of consular assistance given to her at the time of her arrest, a detail that Mexico often cites to assist in the defense of its compatriots arrested abroad – especially in U.S. death penalty cases. The extended delay in handing Cassez over to prosecutors also violated her rights, he noted.
Like more than a century earlier in France, Mexican intellectuals are making their opinion known on the case. Writer Jorge Volpi said this week: “I don’t know whether she is guilty or innocent but the process was so tainted that in any other country Florence Cassez would have been freed a long time ago.”
Writer Carlos Fuentes said the “error of the Mexican justice system can be remedied by releasing Cassez.”
While several human rights groups also share the views of the esteemed writers, supporters of victims’ rights are adamantly against overturning Cassez’s long sentence.
Accompanied by Isabel Miranda de Wallace, director of the Asociación Alto al Secuestro and an activist whose son died at the hands of kidnappers, two of the victims who testified against Cassez had an audience with three of the Supreme Court judges this week to defend their testimony.
Wallace said that despite the irregularities in the staging of the raid for television, Cassez’s guilt was proven and the victims’ rights must be taken into consideration by the judges.
One solution that might placate all sides is if the Supreme Court orders a retrial. Although Wallace said that option is unacceptable, the Attorney General’s Office has hinted that it would abide with such a decision.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy greeted Zaldivar’s recommendation with the statement: “The first good news in five and a half years.”
He went on to say: “Florence is a young woman who fell in love nearly six years ago with the wrong person and has been in a living hell ever since.”
Sarkozy’s unswerving support of Cassez has caused diplomatic tensions between Mexico and France, even leading to the cancellation of a major cultural event, “The Year of Mexico,” planned last year in several French cities.
Mexico has refused to hand Cassez over to France so that she can serve out her sentence in her homeland because it is feared she will be granted an early release.
In polls conducted in Mexico on the case, around 60 percent of Mexican citizens believe Cassez is guilty and should serve her time in prison.