Court finally frees rape survivor jailed for killing rapist too violently

In the earlier ruling that imprisoned her, the court acknowledged that Roxana Ruiz, 23, an indigenous woman in Mexico acted in self-defence, but added that she went overboard.

According to the court, it is understandable that she killed her rapist in 2021 out of self-defence, but the force she applied to defend herself was excessive, hence the death of the rapist.

The court found the rape survivor guilty of homicide with “excessive use of legitimate defence”. In its view, hitting the rapist’s head was enough resistance to the attack, and Ruiz didn’t have to add more, which led to the death of her assailant.

It is reported that she first knocked the rapist unconscious, then strangled him and finally tried to dismember his body. She kept the body for at least 20 hours before putting it in a plastic bag on the street.

Ruiz, in defending her action told the court: “It was my life or his life. I only wanted to defend my life from a rapist.”

Aside from the jail term, Ruiz, from the southern state of Oaxaca, was also ordered to pay more than US$16,000 in reparations to the family of her rapist.

The single mother had already spent nine months in pre-trial detention before being released for the duration of the trial.

In sentencing her, the court said it considered Ruiz’s “vulnerability as a woman and as an indigenous person”.

Facts of the case:

In May 2021, Ruiz was working selling french fries in Nezahualcoyotl, one of the 11 municipalities in Mexico State with an ongoing gender alert for femicides and another one for forced disappearances of women.

While having a beer with a friend, Ruiz, an Indigenous Mixteca woman and a single mother from the state of Oaxaca, met a man she had seen around the neighbourhood. After hanging out, he offered to walk her home and later asked to stay the night because it was late and he was far from home.

Ruiz agreed to let him sleep on a mattress on the floor. But while she slept he climbed onto her bed, hit her, tore off her clothes and raped her, according to Carrera, Ruiz’s legal defence.

Ruiz fought back, hitting him in the nose, and he threatened to kill her. In the struggle to free herself she killed him in self-defence, Carrera said.

In a panic, Ruiz put the man’s body in a bag and dragged it out to the street where passing police arrested her.

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Court finally frees rape survivor jailed for killing rapist too violently

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