The Justice of Mexico City this Wednesday sentenced the owner of the Rébsamen school, Mónica García Villegas, to 31 years in prison for the murder of 19 children and seven adults who died on September 19, 2017. That day the school facilities private, which García Villegas had illegally expanded, collapsed during the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that shook the capital.
The Prosecutor's Office had requested a 57-year prison sentence for wrongful death for the owner of the school, who has defended her innocence until the last moment.
The owner of the Rébsamen is the first and only one so far convicted of the tragedy.
On September 18, three judges considered that the owner of the school had illegally expanded and built a floor of more than 230 tons in the mayor's office of Tlalpan, to the south of the capital, and unanimously voted to convict García Villegas of murder.
The final sentence was pending, which was communicated this Wednesday to the families of the victims and the convicted person.
“We achieve justice for the victims!” Ernestina Godoy Ramos, Mexico City's attorney general, said on Twitter.
The victims' lawyers had already expressed in an interview in September with this newspaper that the sentence was "an important advance" after three years of litigation but that "many more people need to be punished."
“[García Villegas] did not have the papers in order.
How do i do it?
With gifts.
And this is done with corruption ”, said this Wednesday before the cameras one of the lawyers representing the family.
In addition to Villegas, there are two other detainees for the
Rébsamen case
, two construction managers who endorsed the construction, engineers in charge of signing a certificate with the Government.
But no official of the Administration at the time has been prosecuted.
The head of the Tlalpan delegation in 2017 was Claudia Sheinbaum, the current head of government of the capital.
During the hearing, García Villegas once again insisted on his innocence, as his lawyers have declared to the media: “She said: I don't have to ask you for forgiveness for that.
Sorry not because I'm innocent.
And if it bothers them, well, the teacher has a right to defend herself ”.
The lawyers have also announced that they plan to appeal the decision of the magistrates.
"With good arguments we are going to get out of this," they have assured the cameras.