A hero’s welcome for freed Frenchwoman

AFP/Reuters/ParisA Frenchwoman freed from Mexican jail after a court said that police violated her rights by staging her arrest for kidnapping on national television, arrived in Paris yesterday to a hero’s welcome.A smiling Florence Cassez arrived on a flight from Mexico City with her father Bernard, a day after Mexico’s Supreme Court voted for her release after seven years in prison in a case that strained Franco-Mexican ties.France’s foreign minister was among the many dignitaries joining her mother and members of her support committee for her arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport.Dozens of reporters and camera crews were also in place to record the arrival of the 38-year-old whose release was hailed by President Francois Hollande, who said it marked “the end of a particularly painful period”.“I have suffered as a victim for the last seven years,” Cassez told reporters at the airport. “This also a great victory for Mexicans in the sense that justice has been done.”Cassez, who has always proclaimed her innocence, was accused of being involved with a gang of kidnappers known as the Zodiacs, allegedly run by her former boyfriend Israel Vallarta.The court justices ruled that the police violated her right to presumption of innocence and consular access when it staged her arrest in a live national television broadcast on December 9, 2005.Mexican television showed police storming her former boyfriend’s ranch near Mexico City, where they detained Cassez and freed three hostages as cameras rolled.It was later revealed that she had actually been arrested on a road hours before the raid. The federal police said the re-enactment was made at the request of the media.Her treatment caused a diplomatic spat in February 2011, when Mexican authorities cancelled a “Year of Mexico” cultural event in France after its then-president Nicolas Sarkozy tried to dedicate the festivities to Cassez.The case of Cassez, who had faced 60 years in jail, also put a spotlight on Mexico’s troubled justice system, where most crimes go unsolved and authorities are often accused of corruption and abuse.But her release angered crime victim rights activists. As Cassez was driven away from prison after her release, wearing a flak jacket, some people shouted “Kidnapper! Murderer!”Though all five Supreme Court justices agreed that Cassez’s constitutional and human rights were violated, two of them said the case should be sent back to lower courts. The court did not rule on whether she was guilty or innocent.The Supreme Court already examined her case last year, but the panel was split on whether to release her, even though four of the five justices then agreed that there were irregularities in the case.Cassez meanwhile said that Sarkozy had saved her life by backing her case.Teary-eyed but beaming, Cassez was careful to thank the current president, Hollande, but made clear she considered Sarkozy’s help had been crucial.“I remember when Sarkozy took a stand in my case. It was a crucial moment. He saved my life because I went through very difficult times where sometimes I would get up in the morning and tell myself I was too tired to keep fighting,” Cassez told a sea of TV cameras at Paris’s Roissy airport.“At that moment Nicolas Sarkozy arrived – and then later on, Francois Hollande. I owe him a lot,” said Cassez.Cassez spoke to Sarkozy by phone ahead of the court ruling and again before boarding her flight home, but aides said he was unable to meet her at the airport as he was out of the country.Sarkozy, who lost power to Hollande in May last year, had long fought to secure her release, pleading in person with then-Mexican president Felipe Calderon to free the Frenchwoman.Her surprise release eight months into Hollande’s presidency could instead give a fillip to the incumbent’s approval ratings, currently mired at around 37%.Hollande hailed the ruling, invited the Cassez family to the presidential palace and dispatched his foreign minister to greet her on the airport tarmac. But some conservatives suggested he was trying to cash in on her release.“It’s a pity Francois Hollande didn’t mention Nicolas Sarkozy, who at the end of the day was the one behind this,” Rachida Dati, a prominent member of Sarkozy’s UMP party, told BFM TV.Cassez said she had not believed that she was going home until the last minute.“I have dreamt 10,000 times of this moment,” she said at the airport after hugging her mother and brother. “Right up until I boarded the plane, I didn’t quite believe it. Even now I’m not sure I believe it.”Some Mexican rights groups said the victims were forgotten in the Cassez case.“Sadly, today showed that the rights of victims don’t count,” said Isabel Miranda de Wallace, leader of the Stop the Kidnapping Association. “What counts is power, money and connections, leaving the victims with empty hands.”