Moroccan Woman on Trial for Infanticide Alleges Years of Paternal Abuse

The accused said she hid the pregnancy out of fear and that she could no longer have an abortion because it was already too late. But at the birth of the baby, on March 24, 2020, she tried in vain to smother him and left him in a closet before her mother recovered the child and then abandoned him in a container, the prosecution claims, which is calling for the two women to be prosecuted as presumed perpetrators of a murder of a minor under 16 years of age with a family relationship, for which it is requesting life imprisonment.

To read: Infant Dies of Neglect in Malaga: Mother Charged with Manslaughter

However, the two defendants claim that they did not kill the child and that he was probably recovered alive by a passer-by in the street in Tortosa, right next to her house, where her grandmother claims to have left him alive. But the baby’s body was never found. The defense, for its part, is asking for the facts to be qualified as abandonment of a minor with a family relationship and is requesting a prison sentence of 2 to 4 years.

The case came to light in October 2020 when the young defendant had told her story to some of her classmates. An investigation was opened in December of the same year by the Mossos d’Esquadra, which led to the arrest in April 2021 of the two women, who have been in pre-trial detention since then.

The trial ends next Monday.