"I left her locked in the room, with a bottle and cookies, and I did not return to the house anymore"

Sara, from behind, during the trial that began this Monday at the Provincial Court of Malaga.Jorge Zapata / EFE

"I left her locked in the room, with a bottle and cookies, and I did not return to the house."

These were the words that Sara, who will turn 22 at the end of this month, told the agents of the Homicide Group of the National Police of Malaga hours after being arrested on December 1, 2018. The young woman was referring to her daughter, Camelia, who was 17 months old at the time and whom one day in October of that year she left on a double bed forever "being aware that the result of the baby's death was going to inevitably occur", according to the letter from accusation of the Prosecutor's Office.

He left her alone in the bedroom of her apartment, with the door closed, the blind down, a bottle and some cookies.

He locked the property and never came back.

The Public Prosecutor's Office requests 21 years in prison for murder for the woman, who is in provisional prison, communicated and without bail, since December 3, 2018. The defense asks to reduce the sentence to 16 years for the existence of mental disorders.

The trial, with a popular jury, began this Monday at the Provincial Court of Malaga.

The first to declare was Sara herself, who has acknowledged the facts with a "yes", the same answer she has given as to whether she was aware that the abandonment would mean the death of the girl, as indicated by Europa Press.

The woman has been sorry for it.

Several police officers have also participated, who have described what they found in the house where they found the little girl, now deceased, and how, hours later, the woman was arrested.

In the next few days, several people close to the young woman will also come to testify, who maintained an "intense nighttime social life," according to the prosecutor's letter.

The report describes her as a woman with an "immature personality" who is characterized "by an outstanding egocentricity" and who has "difficulty in giving up her own satisfactions" as well as having a "significant degree of impulsiveness".

The detailed document highlights that this does not affect his ability to understand the facts that are attributed to him and that he does not present "any psychiatric pathology".

On the other hand, his defense claims that he had psychological problems, that he tried to commit suicide several times and was at risk of social exclusion.

"She is aware of what she has done and is going to punish for it," said her lawyer, José Luis Rodríguez Candela, who asked to reduce the sentence due to the existence of "personal, social and family" circumstances.

"She wants to pay for what she has done," the lawyer has sentenced.

"Intense nightlife"

Sara had come to Spain from Morocco in March 2017 to study in Malaga, where she settled regularly and had the financial support of her two older brothers, who resided in Moroccan territory.

Their daughter was born two months later, on May 4, at the Axarquía comarca hospital, in Vélez-Málaga.

Sara stayed to live in this town with her sister and her brother-in-law, who usually lived in Morocco, although they traveled regularly to visit her.

The young woman then had the support of an acquaintance, Rajae, who stayed with her daughter while she traveled to Malaga to attend an academy to prepare for the selectivity, although she barely attended class.

At the end of the 2017/2018 school year, Sara decided to move to the city of Malaga, where she rented an apartment in the historic center thanks to the money her family sent her.

Sara did not make the arrangements to change her daughter's nursery, so the baby lost her place in Torre del Mar and lacked a new one in the Malaga capital.

In August 2018, she began working as a waitress and public relations in a Malaga nightclub.

She would go into her workplace at two in the morning, leaving the baby - who was 15 months old at the time - alone at home on the double bed.

When her shift ended, at six in the morning, she did not return home: she preferred to go to a friend's, where she rested until 2:00 p.m.

"During this period and practically daily, his daughter remained alone at home, devoid of the necessary emotional care and physical care - drink, food and cleanliness - necessary for a baby of her age," underlines the Public Prosecutor in his accusation.

The trend continued in the following weeks.

So Sara decided to go to sleep with a friend, Hassan.

With him and other people he continued his "intense nightlife" despite the fact that he had already ended his working relationship with the disco.

He hardly saw his daughter in the afternoon when he fed her and left her alone until the next afternoon.

Neighbors told the police that they heard the "inconsolable and continuous crying of the baby" who, according to the Prosecutor's Office, was left "in an unhealthy environment of dirt and disorder, with clothes and remains of empty containers and food and drinks scattered on the floor and on the furniture ”.

"He ended up shutting up due to exhaustion," adds the prosecutor.

In October 2018, when the little girl was 17 months old, Sara left her permanently.

He left her locked in the bedroom of her apartment, in total darkness and "only with a bottle and some cookies."

Since then, he has not communicated to his friends, partner, family or any institution the real whereabouts of the baby.

When they asked him, "he insisted that another person was caring for him," says the prosecution's brief. His "intense nighttime social life" continued at later dates. He even celebrated his 20th birthday on November 27, 2018 with his friends.

On the 30th of that month, Sara's brothers traveled to Malaga to see her after not locating her.

They asked him about the girl, first he lied, but then he told them that he had left her alone at home a month ago and, immediately afterwards, she fled on the run.

The relatives called the local police and the agents forced the door for fear of the risk that the life of the little girl was running.

They found his corpse at the foot of the bed, face down.

On the bed there were traces of urine, paracetamol and traces of cocaine.

The autopsy concluded that the death had occurred between one and five days after being abandoned due to the deprivation of water and food.

That morning, already on December 1, the young woman was detained by agents of the Homicide Group of the National Police.