Romina Celeste's mother leaves without her remains: "I screamed and cried asking for that lung, but it couldn't be"

Miriam Rodríguez returns to Paraguay this Wednesday after attending the sessions of the trial against the confessed murderer of her daughter

June 7 2023 (12:13 WEST)
Updated in June 7 2023 (12:13 WEST)
Romina Celeste's mother Miriam Rodríguez and her lawyer, Emilia Zaballos. Photo: Andrea Domínguez.
Romina Celeste's mother Miriam Rodríguez and her lawyer, Emilia Zaballos. Photo: Andrea Domínguez.

Romina Celeste's mother Miriam Rodríguez and her lawyer, Emilia Zaballos, spoke this Wednesday on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero after the Jury Court issued a guilty verdict against her daughter's confessed murderer, Raúl Díaz Cachón.

"The great sadness is that they couldn't give me back my daughter's remains. I screamed and cried asking for that lung, but it couldn't be. They say they'll send it to me, but when, I don't know," she lamented on air.

Romina Celeste's mother is leaving "without her daughter's remains. We are traveling again without them," denounced lawyer Emilia Zaballos, who stated that the problem comes from the Court that investigated the case in Lanzarote after the Forensic Anatomical Institute has done a "fantastic job."

The case opened against Raúl Díaz Cachón judges the episodes of gender violence, homicide, and desecration of the corpse of the young Paraguayan woman resident in Lanzarote. The trial is awaiting the sentence of the magistrate of the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas.

Miriam Rodríguez related that facing the trial and having the murderer of her daughter in front of her "was the worst day of my life, very strong, very painful, my heart broke." The woman traveled from Paraguay, her country of residence, to Gran Canaria to attend all the sessions of the trial. It was during the last one, held this Tuesday, when Miriam Rodríguez sat in public audience right behind the man who killed her daughter. "Having him there in front and not being able to do anything," she said on the morning show Buenos Días Lanzarote.

"I am a little calmer after my daughter's trial. Luckily, justice was done and it came to a good end because there are many who don't have a trial. I always had the support of my lawyer and from day zero she was by my side until the end. Very grateful for that," Miriam Rodríguez took the opportunity to thank Emilia Zaballos for her collaboration.

Regarding the penalties requested by the Public Prosecutor's Office and endorsed by the Jury Court, Zaballo explained that "we are talking about 15 years, since you apply the mitigating circumstance of reparation of the damage, you have to reduce it. Furthermore, in this country it is very cheap to desecrate a corpse. We are talking about very serious crimes, with very low penalties. That's what comes out. Not a single day of freedom has been given to him that he could not have been entitled to and that, furthermore, if a trial had been held, he would not have been sentenced to the same penalty," the lawyer said in her intervention on the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote.

The sadness for the mother continues to exist, because not only has she lost a daughter, but the murderer of Romina Celeste has not said where the body is. "We know what part of the body he got rid of by throwing it into the sea, but we don't know the rest. The only thing he has admitted is that he committed the homicide, but at no time do we know how it happened or the exact time. We know that Romina from 4:00 p.m. on December 31, 2018, could have lost her life at any moment," Zaballos recalled.

"The Jury has done a fantastic job. Raúl at no time has come to this confession because he has repented, his last words cannot reach the heart of Miriam, Romina's mother, because they are not real. Everything pointed to the fact that authorship and guilt were proven."

Lawyer Emilia Zaballos has taken advantage of the moment on air to remember that she is continuing with the complaints for the delays in the trial: "The irregularities have been brutal. The first part of the investigation was brilliant by the judge and the agents. From there, the inconsistencies are all of them."

"It hasn't been easy. We insisted that there was no reduction of any sentence and in a Jury Court there is no conformity, but there is confession. The requirement was the reparation of the damage," through the payment of 300,000 euros to the victim's family, of which the murderer paid 260,000 euros before the trial.

At the same time, she has returned to remember, as she already did in the trial, that in the second beating that Romina Celeste received on December 29, 2018, and for which she went to the hospital to ask for help, the system failed, allowing Raúl Díaz to take the victim out of the health center, just three days before her death.

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