Mexican prosecutors open investigation into case of girl wrongly taken to Texas

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/24/mexican-prosecutors-investigation-girl-texas

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Related: Mistaken identity: girl pulled screaming from Mexican school and sent to Texas

Prosecutors have launched an investigation of possible criminal conduct in the case of a 14-year-old girl mistakenly sent to the US to live with a woman who claimed to be her mother, authorities said on Friday.

Alondra Luna Nunez was returned to her family in Mexico on Wednesday after DNA testing in the US showed she was not the long-missing daughter of Houston resident Dorotea Garcia.

The prosecutor’s office in the south-western state of Michoacan said in a statement that it is looking into the case involving a civil court judge in Los Reyes, including media reports and videos “which suggest probable acts against the child’s bests interests and could constitute an illegal action”.

Video footage of Alondra being taken screaming by police circulated widely and attracted national and international attention to the case.

Alondra had asked for DNA tests in Mexico before she was sent to the US, and her parents presented more than a dozen documents including her baptismal records, family photographs and a copy of her birth certificate.

But Judge Cinthia Elodia Mercado ruled that Alondra was in fact Alondra Diaz Garcia, who was taken from Texas by her father in 2007. The other girl remains missing, and the father’s whereabouts are also unknown.

Elodia Mercado said this week that it was not within her authority to order DNA testing, and she was obligated to ensure Mexico followed international conventions on child abductions.

“We, as judges, are only responsible to resolve the case with respect to recovering the minor,” she said. “We don’t do investigations or make inquiries.”