The family and defense of Ecuadorian Nelson Iván Serrano, who at 83
is the oldest man on Florida's death row
, defended his innocence at an event in Miami and asked the state governor, Ron DeSantis, to " investigate” the case and learn about the numerous human rights violations that were committed.
Serrano is a businessman who was sentenced to death for a quadruple murder in the city of Bartow, located about 45 miles east of Tampa, but has always pleaded not guilty.
His lawyer, Greg Eisenmenger, recalled at the event held on Friday at Florida International University (FIU) that the jury did not unanimously convict him, nine jurors voted in favor and three against, and assured that
"there is convincing evidence of His innocence".
Eisenmenger also criticized the "serious delays" that are taking place in the Justice in Florida to proceed with the review of Serrano's sentence (for life imprisonment or confirmation of the death penalty unanimously), which should have taken place in 2017.
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Undated family photo provided where Ecuadorian Nelson Iván Serrano (2-d) appears with his wife and three children, on a visit to prison. Courtesy / EFE / Serrano Family
The Ecuadorian's son, Francisco Serrano, summarized the events that led to his father's conviction and referred to the "determining evidence that exonerates him" of the murders that the State "has hidden", in addition to the "evidence of DNA and the testimony of eyewitnesses”, according to the EFE agency.
He recalled that his father, who is imprisoned in the Raiford prison, is practically deaf,
has serious vision and heart problems,
and does not receive the medical care he needs in prison "because they do not provide it."
The Bartow murders took place in 1997 in a company in which Serrano was a partner, and for which he was sentenced in 2006 to four death sentences, despite the fact that he was in Atlanta on the day they occurred.
deported to the United States
Three years after the murders, Serrano, who was investigated as a suspect but never indicted, retired and returned to Quito free of charge.
But in 2002 two US agents bribed, according to what Serrano's son told Efe, Ecuadorian police officers to take him to the United States "without the knowledge of the authorities already hidden."
"He was kidnapped, in violation of human rights and without due process," the man said.
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According to what his relatives have told the media, Serrano would have been taken out of a restaurant by force, locked in a dog cage and then transferred without documents on a commercial flight to Miami.
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“The Ecuadorian State illegally detained Nelson Iván Serrano Sáenz on August 31, 2002 in Quito,
held him incommunicado and in inhuman conditions
, and then deported him in an equally illegal and summary manner to the United States, where the victim has been sentenced to death. death for the murder of four people, acts of which he has declared himself innocent,” denounced the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Ecuadorian Oscar Vela, lawyer and author of the novel "The Bartow Crimes," denounced Serrano's conviction based on "a single false, fabricated piece of evidence."
For a missing four million dollars
Serrano had had a dispute months before the crime over an alleged lack of four million dollars from the company's accounts with his two partners, according to the writer and investigator Vela.
One of the four people who were murdered in Bartow was a partner of those former partners
and since Serrano had initiated a civil case against them for this absence, he was investigated as suspected of being the intellectual author of the murder.
Serrano's partner George Gonsalves was killed along with his son, daughter and son-in-law (who are believed to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time) in a shootout that used three different weapons.
While this was happening, Serrano was in Atlanta, but he was the only one convicted as the perpetrator of the crimes.
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“I started this story with doubts, I also thought, it
is so difficult to face justice in the United States
, it is a judicial system that one believes is quite perfect, but now I know that it is anything but perfect and that it is a corrupt system like those ours, which is perverse, vitiated,” Vela assured in a recent interview with Ethic, from El Tiempo.
“You have the right to a fair trial”
In a virtual appearance from Ecuador with the EFE agency, the attorney general of the South American country, Iñigo Salvador, described Serrano as a "victim of a kind of kidnapping by the US authorities" and expressed his "intimate conviction" that his compatriot "has right to a fair trial”.
“He has the right to a fair trial in light of the evidence from the trial in which he was sentenced to death,” Salvador affirmed, adding that the Ecuadorian State “decided to assume the responsibilities” derived from the
“illegality of his deportation process.” ”
to the United States.
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The Ecuadorian state attorney general insisted that Serrano "could not have been removed like this," that "he must be returned to his country of origin" and that the extradition treaties by the United States "were not respected."
They ask De Santis to intervene
Roberto Serrano, 57, asked Governor DeSantis for a "hearing to inform him of what has happened" with his father, "of the kidnapping and violations of his rights."
Family photograph from 1976 on loan showing Ecuadorian Nelson Iván Serrano with his wife and three children. Courtesy / EFE/Familia Serrano
"
We want (DeSantis) to launch a detailed and rapid investigation
"on the report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on Florida "for violation of the rights" of my father, he said Thursday to Efe.
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Also participating in the event at FIU were Óscar Vela, lawyer and author of the book “Los Crimes de Bartow”;
Ecuadorian journalist Janet Hinostroza, several exonerated from the death penalty or long prison sentences, and Michael Ibar, brother of Pablo Ibar, a Hispanic-American who was sentenced to death and fought with the help of his family and the authorities. Spanish to be tried again.
One of the objectives of the act was for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis to urge the justice system to dispatch without further delay the resources to review the sentence and for the court to set a date for the hearing.