Lydia Cacho, at a press conference in 2011.Giorgio Cosulich / Getty
"Yes, I admit it."
This is how journalist Lydia Cacho announced the arrest of businessman Kamel Nacif Borge in Lebanon, a country to which the man had fled since two years ago the Mexican Justice issued a search and arrest warrant for his connection with the crimes of illegal detention and torture against the chronicler in 2005. Nacif, a powerful entrepreneur in the textile sector, appears at the center of the plot of child sexual exploitation that Cacho uncovered in his book
Los Demonios del Edén.
More information
A judge orders Mario Marín prison for the torture of journalist Lydia Cacho
'Justice from exile', by Lydia Cacho
“Testifying before the Lebanese authorities for the arrest of Kamel Nacif Borge. The girl trafficking businessman who orchestrated my torture, bought little girls to prostitute them, laundered money and evaded the treasury in the United States, "the journalist announced Thursday night through her Twitter account. The Lebanese authorities have withdrawn Nacif's passport and he is free on bail, according to information from Cacho herself, who has also announced that she will travel to Lebanon for the next hearing, on June 15, to “demonstrate how a businessman linked to the highest echelons of Mexican power become traffickers of girls and adults in labor exploitation. Money launderer, operator of the Mexican Senate ”.
Testifying before the Lebanese authorities for the arrest of Kamel Nacif Borge.
The girl trafficking businessman who orchestrated my torture, bought little girls to prostitute them, laundered money and evaded the treasury in the United States.
15 years later #HereNadieSeRinde pic.twitter.com/Fqp0nsoLXj
- Lydia Cacho (@lydiacachosi) May 13, 2021
The open trial against Nacif adds to the arrest and imprisonment of former Puebla Governor Mario Marín in February of this year.
Marín is accused of ordering the torture and illegal detention of the journalist.
The trial against the former governor is the first case of a senior government official to be brought to court for a crime of torture related to the freedom of expression of a journalist.
In his complaint, Cacho pointed to a network of sexual exploitation of girls and boys between four and 14 years of age led by businessmen Jean Succar Kuri and Nacif himself. Lydia Cacho was arbitrarily detained by a group of police officers on December 16, 2005 in Cancún (Quintana Roo) and transferred by vehicle to the city of Puebla. On the way, she was tortured and accused of defamation by the Puebla Prosecutor's Office. The action was ordered by then-Governor Marín.
His relationship with the indicated businessmen was exposed in flagrante delicto after the publication of a recording in 2006 in which the former governor guaranteed impunity for Nacif. It was just beginning his term. Nacif thanked him for having arrested the journalist who accused him of participating in a network of child sexual exploitation. Marín assured the businessman that Cacho received "a fucking bump", but not before asking his friend for "two bottles of cognac" in exchange for the favor and assured that in Puebla "the law is respected."
The recording was a great political scandal in Mexico, but without legal consequences until almost 15 years later.
The recording was one of the bases for a Quintan Roo court to issue arrest warrants against Mario Marín, Kamel Nacif and the former director of the then Puebla State Judicial Police, Hugo Adolfo Karam Beltrán.
Years before, and in the face of many more complaints of harassment and death threats, Cacho was forced to leave Mexico and take refuge abroad, from where she continued to insist on the cumbersome judicial process.
Subscribe here
to the
newsletter
of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current situation of this country
