The Prosecutor's Office of the Mexican state of Morelos (center) will charge with the crime of femicide and will seek a maximum penalty of 70 years in prison for alias El Trompas, arrested as the alleged perpetrator of the death of Spanish student Claudia Tacoronte, who was stabbed on Saturday in the municipality of Cuautla, 120 kilometers south of Mexico City.
"The injuries that he (the detainee) inflicted on Claudia allow us to establish that what happened was a femicide, due to the way he did it," stated the Morelos prosecutor, Fernando Blumenkron, at a press conference this Thursday from the Government Palace in Cuernavaca, the state capital.
Blumenkron indicated that the Prosecutor's Office will seek a 70-year prison sentence, the maximum penalty provided by state legislation, for the manner in which the young woman was murdered.
The prosecutor indicated that the detainee stole Tacoronte's cell phone, but explained that the characteristics of the injuries and the way she was attacked allow the Prosecutor's Office to maintain the charge of femicide.
"The Penal Code of our state establishes as one of the causes for it to be established or classified as femicide that these types of injuries exist," he pointed out.
He also ruled out that the crime had a sexual component, as some versions suggested, and announced new investigations to locate evidence related to the case, including Tacoronte's cell phone and the weapon used in the attack.
Previously, federal authorities reported the arrest of the alleged femicide, in Cuautla, the place where the crime occurred and located about 120 kilometers south of Mexico City.
The suspect, identified as Francisco Javier, alias El Trompas, was arrested five days after the crime and less than 30 hours after the Morelos Prosecutor's Office issued a wanted and capture notice against him on Wednesday.
Blumenkron detailed that the arrest occurred around 6:00 PM local time (2:00 AM GMT +1) in the center of Cuautla, after information provided by citizens guided the operation to locate him.
The prosecutor also confirmed that the accused had a criminal record and had previously been in prison for robbery-related offenses.
Tacoronte, a 21-year-old Canary Islander, was murdered with a bladed weapon last Saturday, September 12, in Cuautla. She had arrived in Mexico in mid-August to carry out an academic exchange between the University of Granada and the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos (UAEM).
The murder has caused outrage inside and outside of Mexico after it became known that Tacoronte is the fourth UAEM student murdered in just seven months, following the cases of Kimberly Ramos, Karol Toledo, and Michelle Itzayana Fuentes, which had already generated protests and student strikes.
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