The hidden pistol in the suitcase that embittered a quinceañera trip of some Mexicans through Europe

Karla EZ shows the back of her luggage, in whose pocket was found the weapon that she is holding and not hers, at the Madrid-Barajas airport, on May 11. JUAN BARBOSA

Madrid was just the final stop on a two-week trip that took Karla EZ back to her country, Mexico, after touring cities in six European countries.

But this 20-year-old student will never forget her time in the capital of Spain, where she arrived on April 27 and where she planned to spend only 10 hours, just the time between two flights.

Those 10 hours stretched to 22 days, and not for good reason.

The young woman brought her suitcase full of

bought in the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria

miniature license plates and brass boxes with Van Gogh motifs.

But she also had in her luggage a nine-millimeter caliber pistol for military use, with its charger and 12 cartridges.

Karla assures that the weapon is not hers and that neither she nor anyone in her family put it in the suitcase.

She was arrested in the early hours of April 28, 15 minutes before she was to board her plane for Mexico.

She spent the night in the T4 dungeon and, although she was released on bail the next day, she is accused of illegal possession of weapons that could face her up to three years in prison.

Pistol and 12 cartridges next to Karla EZ's suitcase, in an image from the Civil Guard file.

The young woman defends her innocence and assures that the pistol was detected in an outer pocket of the luggage and not inside the suitcase, an extreme confirmed by sources of the investigation.

Karla insists that it would not make sense for a young woman like her, who presumes to have an average of nine on her academic record and no criminal record, to face three years in prison in Spain —which would be up to 10 if the criminal had been found. weapon in Mexico—, for a pistol, a Spanish-made Special Lama, which, according to his lawyer, Juan Carlos Lois, does not exceed 300 or 400 euros in value;

and no more than 200, according to a weapons expert consulted by this newspaper.

And all this in a trip, a gift for a quinceañera, which had been planned “for years” and that the family longed to celebrate after being postponed several times due to covid.

The young woman has remembered the last moments in Vienna before arriving in Madrid.

"I am very meticulous in my organization and my suitcase was super compact and everything was well folded," she emphasizes.

"This woman is exaggeratedly detailed," supports her father, Guillermo Z., a teacher on sabbatical, who is the only member of the family who remained with the young woman in Spain, after the departure of the sister and mother, this two days after the arrest of his daughter.

Days after her arrest, Karla brings her suitcase back to the airport.

It shows the place where the police found the weapon —which does not appear in the database of the Central Intervention of Weapons of the Civil Guard—: a zippered pocket on the back of the suitcase that, it shows, can be opened quickly and easily.

The case has fallen to the Court of Instruction Number 3 of Madrid, whose magistrate has not applied any precautionary measure against Karla (neither withdrawal of the passport nor obligation to appear periodically).

The young woman could have returned to Mexico immediately, her lawyer maintains, but he recommended that she stay in Spain – until the judge recognized the defendant's domicile in that country – so as not to give the impression that she wants to evade justice.

Finally, the young woman and her father returned to her country on May 19.

To the extraordinary outlay of his family for the trip, the expenses of the father and daughter for staying in Madrid have been added: an acquaintance of the father has lodged them both, but they have also had to pay legal expenses. His tranquility is broken and he sobs when he hears from his father telling his daughter, for the first time, how he has managed to meet expenses: "Now, curiously, we felt less squeezed because my wife had a little savings because she had to have eye surgery," says Guillermo Z., also excited.

The lawyer trusts that, if a dismissal or a file of the case is not possible, Karla will be acquitted.

The lawyer has requested a fingerprint test and the collaboration of the Austrian authorities to provide images of the Vienna airport to help clarify how the weapon, which is seized, got to the suitcase.

The holster that brought the pistol was delivered by the Civil Guard to Karla for not being corpus delicti.

A

bitter

Already in Mexico, the young woman awaits the resolution of the mess that has lasted much longer than her long-awaited vacation in Europe.