My Evidence: The Accused Does Not Have Any Rights
I am facing a trial conducted in a language I cannot understand (now I can a little bit, for years I could not get almost anything; why I cannot speak Tamil properly after several years of living here is a different story). It would make very little difference if I could understand, since in most court rooms I am around 10 meters away from the judge, the lawyers, and the witnesses (when there are any), so I am not able to hear, anyway.
I have no job, but for the exceptional temporary one. I do not have a work permit for India. I cannot leave the country. When I have needed official Mexican documents for my trial, I am not able to get them in Mexico, nor to pay for a lawyer to do it. Nobody helps me in such matters but my mother, who has never been particularly good for that kind of things, and is already of an advanced age. Whenever the prosecution has submitted incomplete documents, I can mention the fact but am not able to present the whole document. The Embassy of Mexico in India has clearly stated more than once that it is not among their responsibilities to help in such matters, and will therefore not do it.
As an accused, I should have all facilities to defend myself, but that is not the case. Official institutions, both Indian and Mexican, treat me very differently than the way they would if I were not accused of having committed a crime. A criminal keeps most of his rights; an accused is not a criminal and must be treated just as any other person as long as his guilt is not proved. But that is not what happens at all, and that is one of the reasons why the prosecution prolonged the case as much as it could, knowing that it was almost impossible to find me guilty. It is incredible that a case involving a foreigner could be extended so much.
For the reasons above, several pieces of evidence in my favor are beyond my reach. Fortunately, even if I had no evidence at all, and all evidence from the prosecution were truthful, that would not be enough to render me guilty according to law. Additionally, the defense has been able to show that almost all the evidence submitted by the prosecution is inadmissible in a court of law.
There are two elements which, even though no having any real weight in the legal case, seem to be aimed at preventing me to show relevant evidence: The impossibility to obtain the death certificate of Cécile Denise Acosta Reynaud, and the hacking of two email addresses. These two points are explained in the following subsections.
Death Certificate
The death certificate of Cécile Denise Acosta Reynaud states that she died on April 11, 2012. It is a document of an administrative character, emitted without the intervention of a forensic doctor, and the date appearing in it is approximate (in this case the date corresponds with the alleged finding of the body). The only weight of such document in a court of law is to attest that she died.
According to the charge sheet, I killed her on April 9, 2012. For a person who does not know properly this particular aspect of the law, that death certificate could seem to be a key piece of evidence in my favor.
The document was emitted soon after my arrest, and the Embassy of Mexico in India included a copy of it among the documents sent to me when I asked, through Dirección General de Protección a Mexicanos en el Exterior, to receive the same documents they had given to the mother of Cécile Denise Acosta Reynaud. She also mentions to have received a copy of the death certificate in an article appearing in the newspaper Reforma (September 30, 2012).
However, when I tried to obtain a certified copy soon afterwards, Madurai Corporation stated that, due to some mistake, such death certificate had never been emitted, so I had to make a requirement to the District Collector. The person holding such office at the time refused to order the emission of the document before the end of my trial. This is definitely very suspicious.
At some point, death certificates in Madurai District were rendered available online. In 2018 I verified that the one corresponding to Cécile Denise Acosta Reynaud did not appear. Towards the end of 2018 such online access was restricted, and only those issued from 2017 onward kept on being available.
In 2019, I asked the Embassy of Mexico in India to require a certified copy of the death certificate. According to the Consul of Mexico and India, the requirement was made by the embassy on February 2019. Till today the document has not been delivered. It is worth noting that already 13 months had elapsed since such requirement once lockdown started because of the pandemics.
Acta de defunción/Death Certificate
Email addresses
The email address I use exclusively for communication with the Embassy of Mexico in India and the Dirección General de Protección a Mexicanos en el Exterior was hacked on February 8, 2018. Almost all emails sent to, and received from, email addresses belonging to the embassy were erased. However, the copies of such emails sent to Dirección General de Protección a Mexicanos en el Exterior where not erased, so almost no information was lost. I immediately certified under notary public all such communications.
On March 3, 2018, the email address I used to communicate with Cécile Denise Acosta Reynaud was hacked. I had stopped using such address since my arrest. Some emails, apparently not very important, were erased. Fortunately, since 2013 I had already certified under notary public all my communication with Cécile.
I turned on all security options available at Yahoo!, but that was not enough to prevent the repeated hackings.
Since then, the second email address mentioned has been hacked several times, and even once the full account was deleted. Even though it is not something very important, since all relevant emails are already certified under notary public, I regularly check such email address and undo all changes, when there are any (recently they just check the account without modifying anything).
Evidence of the prosecution
Most of the evidence presented by the prosecution is put up. The defense cannot prove that it is fake, but it can prove that it is inadmissible in a court of law and, in some cases, that there are elements to doubt its veracity. Therefore, I include the written argument submitted by the defense at court after finishing the oral argument.
The argument is written from the legal approach. As mentioned earlier, it focuses in showing that the evidence is inadmissible at a court of law. The rules specifying what evidence is admissible and how it must be submitted has the aim, precisely, of avoiding false evidence to be taken into consideration in legal procedures.
For example, my call details were completely modified. Such kind of evidence must be submitted in a given format (supposedly difficult to tamper with) and it must carry the signature of a highly ranked employee from the telephone company. But the police submitted a printout of a file in a format which is easy to modify, and with no certification whatsoever from the company. This is what is mentioned in the argument, this is what is relevant from the legal approach. However, if the information regarding my call details were truthful, why was it not submitted as it should? Basically, because the company would not certify false information.
Argumentación-Defensa/Defense Argument
Now I will speak briefly regarding some relevant points. I treat separately the two most important aspects which are not detailed in the written argument, namely, my alleged confession and the corpse identification (which is not mentioned at all in the argument). The elements I mention here include in their titles the pages of the written argument where they are treated, for easy reference.
Postmortem (pp 16-22)
The conclusion drawn from the postmortem performed by a forensic doctor is that the cause of death cannot be determined. There is no mention of any broken bone nor any wound produced by a knife or a similar object. However, the presence of a heat split (long and thin wound caused by heat) in one leg is stated. This completely contradicts the story told by the police, as well as my alleged confession. In addition, there are severe irregularities in the corpse identification.
Call Details (pp 28-35)
The information regarding my call details was completely modified. The police submitted a printout of an excel file, with no certification by the telephone company. According to law, such information must be in a pdf file, and with the signature and certification of a high ranked employee from the company. As happens usually, technology supersedes legal dispositions: It is today extremely easy to modify a pdf file, and even in 2012 it was not difficult at all; even then, it is even easier to tamper with an excel file. The most relevant point here is the lack of certification by the company. Why is it absent, when the law clearly states that it is needed?
Moreover, the police did not include in the charge sheet any information regarding the call details of Cécile Denise Acosta Reynaud. The accusing officer admitted, under cross examination by the defense, to have obtained such call details. Why were they not submitted to court? This fact is also extremely suspicious.
Witnesses (pp 35-41, 49-63)
Witnesses are Tamizhans and speak Tamil. Both their alleged original statements, and their deposition and examination, take place in Tamil. I received the charge sheet translated into English, which includes the alleged original statements of witnesses, but the translations do not always faithfully resemble the original texts. Therefore, what I know about this topic is basically what my lawyer has commented.
The alleged original depositions of most witnesses reached the court several months after they were questioned by the police, and many of them were questioned several months after the occurrence. According to law, all witnesses must be questioned as soon as possible, and their depositions must be sent to court immediately. This is, precisely, to avoid alterations in such depositions.
Most witnesses stated at court that they did not know anything regarding the case. Prof. Karuppasamy mentioned in his deposition that his alleged original statement submitted by the police does not match what he said. Prof. Vijayakartik told about the illegal arrest at Kalasalingam University on Monday, April 16, 2012.
Ten witnesses were recalled two years after their first examination (more than four years after my arrest). Some of them (not all) changed their version. This was most probably done under police pressure. According to law, it is not allowed to recall a witness in order to pose questions or ask for information already treated in a previous deposition of the same witness; the exception to this rule is when new evidence has come to light, which was not the case here. If any given witness of the prosecution provides different versions of the same fact, the one valid at court is that which favors the accused the most.
Santhalakshmi, who allegedly informed the police regarding the finding of the corpse, did not identify at court the spare part allegedly found in the same place. Since such spare part has something to do with the gearbox, she said that there was “a small plastic box, not present now in the court room”, while the object submitted as evidence is a plastic plank, fairly long and broad, which was in front of her at the moment.
She was recalled soon afterwards with an identical result. When she was called for the third time in 2016 (along with other nine witnesses), she described the object correctly and identified it… without even looking at it. To give the idea of truthfulness, the prosecutor asked her to look at the object, which was in a wooden box next to her. I saw all this, even if from ten meters away. In spite of that, when cross examined by the defense afterwards she said that her previous statements were also correct.
The written argument submitted by the defense focuses in showing that the evidence resulting from the depositions of the witnesses who spoke against me is inadmissible or irrelevant, and it merely mentions that most of the witnesses called by the prosecution deposed in my favor.