Introduction
On April 16, 2012, at 22:30, police went to my apartment in Kalasalingam University and ordered me to go with them, along with my five-years-old daughter, to Madurai City, allegedly to identify the body of Cécile Denise Acosta Reynaud, the mother of my daughter, who was missing since some days before.
In Madurai I suffered physical torture for six hours: I was repeatedly hit in temples and ears, as a result of which my hearing capability is permanently impaired; I was manacled to a bench with my arms behind my back, and my legs were forcefully stretched open, causing a torn muscle which took nine months to heal; my fingers were bent to the sides, producing a pain which lasted for six months and left some of my fingers permanently bent. They were trying to force me to sign a “confession” stating that I had killed the mother of my daughter. When the police personnel leading the “interrogation” commented regarding how well they had been treating my daughter, who at that time was sleeping in a nearby room, I immediately gave up and offered to sign whatever they wanted as long as the integrity of my daughter was fully respected.
After 95 days in jail, I came out on bail. I am not allowed to leave India. My trial took more than two years to begin, and has lasted over six years, mostly because the prosecution prolonged it as much as it could (it took more than four and a half years to present its case).
The document where I am formally accused (charge sheet) was given to me more than 11 months after my arrest. Then I realized that almost all the evidence against me was put up (till then, I had believed that it was all a mistake, and that it would be very easy to show so during the trial). It is worth mentioning that, in addition, the evidence is few and not strong. Even if all evidence were true, that would not be enough to render me guilty according to law, not at all. But in top of it, almost all evidence is put up (fake).
Since shortly after my arrest, there has been a campaign of defamation against me, both in the media and in social networks. I cannot answer to it till my trial is over, because I can disclose almost no information: Since almost all evidence is put up, if I tell how I can show it is fake, the prosecution might “patch” its case, taking out what is not convenient for it and relying in what is, or fabricating additional put up evidence. Although this was especially important while the prosecution was presenting its case, it keeps on being relevant till the arguments are over. Although this is a standard procedure in all legal cases, it is substantially more important in a case where most evidence is put up. In addition, if police tortured me physically and put up a case against me for no reason, what will it do if I show evidence of such torture and of the lack of grounds to presume I am guilty?
On top of all this, at the beginning I was told that the whole process would take “from 3 to 6 months”; since early 2018 that was changed into “a maximum of three months”; only when courts of law were closed because of the pandemics at the end of March 2020, it was stated officially that it could take longer, depending on the sanitary situation. All in all, it has been more than eight years. If I had known since the beginning that it was going to take so long, I would probably have taken a different approach, in spite of the risks.