National
Mari Luz Cortés was killed and her body dumped within an hour
By h.b.
Apr 3, 2008 - 8:03 AM

A reconstruction of the day which five year old Marí Luz Cortés disappeared from Huelva, allegedly at the hands of Santiago del Valle, the main suspect, has concluded that he killed the child and, with the help of his sister Rosa, got rid of the body within forty-five minutes to an hour. He hid the body in a supermarket trolley and took it to the marshes before the family started to search for the child.

When the child’s father and others accused him and visited his home, just 100 m away, the deed was done and Santiago del Valle was cool and collected.

The El Mundo newspaper reports today that back in 1992 Santiago del Valle managed to be paid 20 million pesetas compensation after his first daughter, Nuria Noelia del Valle Garcia, was run over in strange circumstances when she was just two years old. The family had been living in a car at the time, and used the money to buy a flat in the Tres Mil Viviendas area of Sevilla where they had two other daughters.

The Mari Luz case has highlighted deficiencies in the Spanish judiciary system, with Santiago del Valle on the streets despite two firm prison sentences handed down against him, and the El Mundo newspaper today gives another example of its shortcomings.

Marcos Martín Ponce - Photo EFE

A chain of judicial and police mistakes has resulted in an accused GRAPO terrorist being set free. According to the paper, a female witness clearly saw how Marcos Martín Ponce shot a policeman, but this witness could not be found when the case came to court in July last year, despite her being a protected witness. Without her testimony the Supreme Court considered that the presumption of innocence had not been broken sufficiently and the man was set free.