Family Demands Justice for Pregnant Woman Murdered in Almeria, Spain

"It’s a cruel death. My daughter could have been pregnant [...] It’s a double murder. Please, we want justice for my daughter, that she stay in prison for the rest of her life and that she not get out. Justice, nothing more," Souad Hamouchy, the victim’s mother, told the press during the demonstration organized on the Plaza de la Misericordia, in the Los Molinos neighborhood of Almería.

Meri was killed on December 30 by Francisco S.B., a 28-year-old man she had met in September. "He not only killed her, he burned her and abandoned her body. We want him to be in prison for the rest of his life because he doesn’t deserve to be on the street. We are devastated and he also left a daughter without a mother," Souad added, referring to her granddaughter, aged 20.

Pending the results of the autopsy which will reveal the exact cause of Meri’s death, her family insists that she could have been three months pregnant, arguing that the victim had confessed this to friends in an audio message before her death.

Meri’s body was transferred to a Muslim cemetery in Valencia, due to lack of available space in Malaga and Murcia. Faced with this situation, Souad has invited the competent authorities to build a Muslim cemetery in Almería. "I don’t want to send him to Morocco because I’ve lived in this country for 35 years... We don’t need to travel to visit a loved one," she said.