Mexican girl 'stolen' by American woman with the help of authorities is returned home after DNA tests
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Version 0 of 1. A 14-year-old girl dragged screaming from her secondary school by Mexican federal agents last week and flown to Texas to live with a woman who claimed to be her mother has been flown home. Alondra Luna was repatriated after DNA tests showed that she was not the daughter of Dorotea García, who had obtained a judges order to have her forcibly taken to Houston, Texas from central Mexican city of Guanajuano. During the shocking footage of the moments when agents pulled Luna out of school, she struggles against them before being bundled into a waiting vehicle. She screams: “I am not your daughter “ at a woman sitting in the car, believed to be García. Luna calls for her father, who appears to the person filming the scene and he attempts to calm her, saying “Daughter, we are going to do something else.” The DNA test was apparently eventually carried out because of the level of interest and outrage generated by the footage. Luna was returned to the city yesterday and her mother, Susana Núñez told Milenio Tv: “We are all very happy," and said that she had rejoiced when she received a phone call telling her that her daughter would be on the first flight home. “They stole my daughter,” she added. Alondra Luna has been returned to her family in Mexico According to a statement released by the Mexican foreign ministry on Wednesday, the order to seize Luna originated from a trip made by García to Mexico earlier this year. During this trip she identified the girl as the daughter she had lost when her father, Reynaldo Díaz, allegedly kidnapped her in 2007. García told Houston television station KPRC-TV that the first time that she caught sight of Luna, “I saw my daughter.” However she gave very few details about the events that allowed her to eventually end up with her leaving Mexico with the girl. Gustavo Luna, the girl's father, told Grupo Imagen that the mistaken identity seemed to have stemmed from the fact that both girls shared the same name, Alondra. He added that he had met Reynaldo Díaz, his sister’s brother-in law, several times while visiting Houston more than a decade ago. A statement that was released on Monday by the Mexican attorney general’s office before the results of the test had been known seemed to rule out a possible case of mistaken identity. This was despite the fact that both parents had been vocally questioning the operation and had organised a blockade of a motorway outside Guanajuato alongside fellow pupils at their daughter’s school. The case has raised pressing questions regarding the protocols used in such cases and why DNA tests were not performed on Luna prior to her being taken to Houston. Her father further stressed that his daughter suffers from a disability that severely limits her control of one side of her body that should have made it immediately obvious that she was not García’s daughter. The judge who ruled on the case said that ordering a DNA test had not been within the remit of her duties before the girl had been taken across the border. Judge Cinthia Elodia Mercado told the Associated Press “We as judges are only responsible to resolve the case with the respect to recovering the minor. We don’t do investigation or make inquiries.”
Local media reported that she arrived in Guanajuato airport on a flight from Dallas at around 11AM on Wednesday. She was immediately taken for a medical exam after which she was thought to have gone home with her parents. Later on the day she spoke to local reporters and said: “She took me from my parents. I didn’t know her or Mr Reynaldo.” Her uncle, Ruben Nunez said that the family was sure to seek some kind of legal action: “In whatever form, they will try and sue whoever is found to be responsible.” Speaking to reporters in the airport in Leon, Mexico after Luna’s arrival he said: “It’s not right what they did, take the girl just because they could.” Alondra Diaz García remains missing. Reynaldo Díaz is suspected of abducting her from Houston in 2007, according the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and a felony warrant has been issued for his arrest. |