CHAPTER 05 01
POLITICAL INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS CONSIDERATIONS
PGN and a judge, amongst others, were acting in collusion313. On 24 October 2011, a Criminal Court sentenced Alma Beatriz Valle de Mejía, the Lawyer of the Asociación Primavera, to 21 years and four months of imprisonment and disqualification from the exercise of her profession during this period, for the offences of human trafficking, use of forged documents and illicit association. The same Court sentenced Enriqueta Francisca Noriega Cano, representative of the Associación Primavera, to 16 years of imprisonment for the offences of human trafficking, use of forged documents and illicit association. A diagram representing the structure and modus operandi of Asociación Primavera is provided below314:
On 18 June 2015, a Court for Higher Risk Sentences sentenced eight persons to between three and 18 years of imprisonment, including lawyer Susana Luarca Saracho and the former children’s judge Mario Fernando Peralta Castañeda, for their participation in the illegal adoption of a Guatemala girl315. The network linked to the Asociación Primavera used ‘child laundering’ as its main method, presenting abducted children before the judge (also sentenced) in order to be declared abandoned, and therefore able to undertake adoption proceedings without the need for DNA tests or documents that would evidence the parentage with the child’s biological parents. This also involved forging their identity, thereby violating the basic rights of Guatemalan children.
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For further information on this case, see: CICIG, Caso Primavera (Causa 01080-2009-00470), http://www.cicig.org/index.php?page=01080-2009-00470 ; and CICIG, Convictions in proceedings supported by CICIG, http://www.cicig.org/uploads/documents/2013/SENT-20131018-01-EN.pdf. Supra 276, p. 40. See: CICIG, Comunicado de Prena 025: Tribunal condena a ocho personas en caso de adopción irregular, 18 June 2015; http://www.cicig.org/index. php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=601&cntnt01returnid=67.
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