Family of a 5-year-old Mari Luz Cortes who was murdered this year have begun a protest trip across Spain to press for life sentences for paedophile killers.
Mari Luz Cortes vanished on January 13 as she walked home from a sweet shop in Huelva, southern Spain. Her decomposed body, still dressed in the clothes she wore that day, was found on a river-bank near her home two months later.The man suspected of killing Mari Luz, a convicted paedophile, was only free at the time of her death because of a judicial mix-up.Despite assurances by the Socialist government to consider introducing a sex offenders register, Mari Luz's uncle and grandfather are collecting signatures from around Spain to force parliament to debate tougher sentences and public lists of paedophiles."The government does nothing. There's no strong and firm justice," Francisco Valentin Cortes, Mari Luz's uncle, told Reuters ahead of his 5500km journey."Here in Spain, paedophile murderers don't go to prison and if they do, they are there for 10 years. We want them to get life in prison."
Under Spanish law, no person convicted of a non-terrorist offence can be imprisoned for more than 30 years, and that sentence is often halved for good behaviour.
Cortes said the 45-day trip taking in 32 cities aims to gather 3 million signatures, though 500,000 would be enough to force parliament to hold a debate addressing their demands.Mari Luz's case has been linked to the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann who went missing just across the border in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz a year ago on Saturday.Mari Luz's family, who are Roma, have called the trip a new `drom', which means `road' in Roma language.The chief suspect was arrested for murder on March 26.The judge who failed to take into account a previous conviction and therefore did not jail him, could be dismissed, Spanish media have reported.
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