The Prosecutor's Office of the State of Mexico has reported this Saturday that it abandons the accusation against Roxana Ruiz, the woman who two years ago killed in self-defense the man who raped her. One of the most mediatic cases of recent months, Ruiz, who had been sentenced a few days ago to six years and two months in prison, for excess of legitimate defense, sees how her complaints begin to take effect. The sentence of six years was not firm and, given the possible appeals of Ruiz and his lawyers, the Prosecutor's Office has decided to withdraw.
"After knowing the sentence of May 15 against Roxana Ruiz," the Prosecutor's Office wrote in a statement, "the attorney general instructed the Central Prosecutor's Office for the Attention of Crimes Linked to Gender Violence to attract the case, for subsequent analysis, under the methodological parameters that must be taken into account when subjects from vulnerable groups are involved, " added. In the review, the gender violence unit concluded that Ruiz "is exempt from criminal responsibility, since this Prosecutor's Office considers that she acted in legitimate defense."
The news is a victory for Ruiz, 23, from Oaxaca. But also for a country like Mexico, which counts thousands of murders of women every year. Ruiz has alluded precisely to what the figures hide. Violence against women, as a context of what happened in her case. In an interview with EL PAÍS this week, he pointed out that "it was my life or his."
The woman told this newspaper that it happened. The year was 2021. Ruiz had gone out with his cart to sell potato chips. Some women who worked in front of her invited her to have a few beers. "I took one and left," he has said on several occasions. At that moment, a boy she knew by sight, Sinai Cruz, approached her and offered to accompany her home. "He insisted that I let it go and stay overnight because he lived so far away," Ruiz explains. She says that, out of fear, she agreed to let him in. When she was asleep, she adds, the man raped her. "I woke up and this guy was on top of me with his pants and boxer down. And I, well, all I did was get rid of it, defend myself and get out alive," she says.
Ruiz says that both struggled and that in the struggle, Cruz hit his head and died. Frightened, the woman tried to remove the man's body from her home, but then police arrested her. Ruiz spent nine months in pretrial detention until he was released on bail. "I explained to them that I defended myself when that person was abusing me, but they didn't take that into account in my statement," she said in an interview.
Asked about the case, a spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office of the State of Mexico explained that the ball is now in the court of the local judiciary. "The Prosecutor's Office is no longer an accusing party. What is expected now is that this week there will be a hearing, in which the judge will know the withdrawal and close the case. Although the latter depends on the judiciary. With this, the Prosecutor's Office recognizes that it was self-defense, "he explains.
Subscribe hereto the newsletter of EL PAÍS Mexico and receive all the informative keys of the news of this country
