Mexico’s attorney general, Alejandro Gertz Manero, and the battle against his in-laws

(CNN Spanish) – At 94, it seems that the only battle that Laura Morán wants to fight is the one that leads to the freedom of her daughter Alejandra Cuevas, accused – like her – of intentional homicide of a common-law partner after the complaint of Alejandro Gertz Manero, who is now the Attorney General of Mexico. The difference is that Alejandra has been following the judicial process in a jail in Mexico City for more than 11 months.

“It’s what I want from justice, justice,” she says in an interview with CNN while recalling the more than 50 years of her life that she shared with Federico Gertz Manero, as well as the abrupt way in which she ended He says it was a great love story.

However, today he questions whether it was worth it in light of what has happened since 2015, when his partner became seriously ill and died in a hospital after he was taken from his home by his brother Alejandro Gertz Manero, who argued negligence, neglect and lack of medical care.

Laura clearly remembers that day, the last day she saw Federico alive, as well as the exchange she says she had with Alejandro Gertz Manero.

“I see 15 people in white, in suits come in and I say:” What is this? ” and Alejandro: “We are from the Public Ministry and who knows what. Are you the wife or the mistress? I replied: “What does that matter to you?” They came to offend me. Then I came and touched Alejandro’s suit and said: “Alejandro, why are you doing this to me? How what why? You are killing my brother. Killing the being I’ve loved all my life? It has been proven to you that he loves me and I love him ”.

Laura Morán was under an arrest warrant since October 2, 2020, which had not been executed due to her advanced age.

At 94, Laura Morán seeks the freedom of her daughter Alejandra Cuevas, who has been following the judicial process in a prison in Mexico City for more than 11 months.

His daughter Alejandra, from prison and awaiting trial, spoke by phone with CNN about this process and says she does not understand why she is in jail. “I am being accused … first it was failure to take care of the prosecutor’s brother. Now it has changed to intentional homicide against the prosecutor, against the brother of the prosecutor who was my mother’s husband, for 52 years they were a couple and to me, without owing or fearing her, they make me almost, almost … well, not almost . They declare me the guarantor of being responsible for Federico’s death, when Federico dies in the hospital run by Brother Alejandro ”.

Alejandro Gertz Manero accuses Laura Morán and her daughter Alejandra Cuevas of intentional homicide of a common-law partner, among other legal actions.

On September 8, an amparo judge in Mexico City annulled the formal prison order issued against him.

It considers, among other things, that the resolution is not properly founded and motivated, for which it ordered that the proceedings against both be reinstated.

On September 28, the Public Ministry filed an appeal for review requesting that the amparo be revoked.

The case will now be reviewed by a collegiate court and there is no set deadline for its resolution.

Gonzalo Castillo, Cuevas’ son, says he is struck by the fact that despite the fact that the complaint was filed in 2015, it was only reactivated when Alejandro Gertz Manero assumed the position of attorney general of Mexico.

“What happened was that in 5 years Alejandro could not carry out this complaint. You cannot specify it because there are not enough elements to prove a crime. The same authorities explain that there is no crime. Alejandro continues, but he continues to run into the wall because there is no crime and everything changes when he becomes a prosecutor in 2019 ”.

CNN has requested on several occasions, by telephone, an interview with Alejandro Gertz Manero to obtain his personal reaction to the case and what the defendants say.

Alejandro Gertz Manero (Credit: ALFREDO ESTRELLA / AFP via Getty Images)

Roberto Fonseca, of Social Communication of the Attorney General’s Office of Mexico, has responded that “he still does not have interview instructions on the subject.”

In 2017, when he was not yet a prosecutor, Alejandro Gertz Manero did speak about the issue on the radio program of Carmen Aristegui, presenter of CNN en Español.

There he explained his version of events and the reason for his complaint to the Public Ministry.

He said Laura Morán called him when his brother was in agony.

“That they are giving him the holy oils, what am I going to do, after I had not been able to speak with him for a month.”

“I go to his house and find him in a truly dramatic state. The man was already unconscious, drowning in his own phlegm, he had lost, it was seen that he had a state of acute malnutrition, he had a very strong pneumonia, he had an obvious intestinal obstruction, it was something terrible what was happening ”.

For this reason, he points out, he went to the Public Ministry at that time to make a complaint of facts against whoever was responsible.

“The Public Ministry arrived with the experts from the Attorney General’s Office and there, the Public Ministry seeing what I could not see, they turned to him, and I think there is a photograph of that, it is truly devastating.”

Federico Gertz Manero died on September 27, 2015 after being hospitalized for a month.

In 2015, Federico fell ill. His partner and her daughter take care of him; in “agony”, Alejandro takes him to the hospital, where he dies a month after he was admitted.

Since then, the Cuevas Morán Family assures that it has yielded to a series of demands of the accusing party, among them, the delivery of all the assets that the couple had accumulated from 50 years of relationship, as well as the waiver of a pension of about US $ 2,500 per month that Federico Gertz Manero had supposedly contemplated in his will, in favor of Laura Morán.

All this as part of a negotiation carried out, they assure, with persons appointed by Alejandro Gertz Manero and with whom they sought the release of Cuevas, Morán’s daughter.

CNN has not been able to verify the existence or amount of these assets, nor that there is such a negotiation.

Beyond the controversy, from prison Alejandra Cuevas says that all she asks for is a fair process.

“I don’t need help, I’m not asking for influence, I’m not asking anyone to help me. I’m just asking you to read my file, and there is nothing in my file that relates to him. Do I make myself clear? Other than that he was my mother’s husband ”.

With the collaboration of Laura Sánchez Ley, Belem Glower and Karina Maciel