The Mexican Cristhian Bahena Rivera , accused of the death of the student of 20 years Mollie Tibbetts, in Iowa, began to be tried this Wednesday with instructions from the judge in the case to avoid the controversy and accusations of racism generated three years ago.
At that time, the president, Donald Trump , and numerous Republican politicians called the laws “disgraceful” immigration authorities, and the governor of Iowa, the Republican Kim Reynolds, criticized the immigration system that allowed a “predator” like the Mexican to have lived in their region.
In an email from the Trump campaign, Tibbetts’ death was blamed on the immigration policies of the Democrats, who he also accused of lacking “empathy or compassion” for those “murdered or victimized ”by the undocumented.
In this lawsuit, the Poweshiek County Attorney General, Bart Klaver, asks for life imprisonment without the right to parole for the immigrant, of 26 years.
“Ladies and gentlemen, when you examine the evidence there can be no other conclusion that the defendant killed Mollie Tibbetts” , Klaver said Wednesday in his opening arguments before the jury.
The prosecutor recalled that Tibbetts disappeared on 18 July 2018 when I was running through rural Brooklyn, Iowa.
According to Klaver, the police questioned Bahena Rivera after surveillance videos showed that her black Chevy Malibu car was in the area where the student was running.
He said that Bahena Rivera admitted his presence at the scene, but denied being linked to the disappearance, until they showed him a photograph of his car in the area.
Klaver said that the migrant, that worked on a farm in the area , admitted that he liked the girl when he saw her go by and approached to talk to her, but it is unknown why he supposedly killed her with several stabs.
Later, according to his version , placed the body in the trunk of his car and took it to a corn plantation, where it was located by the police. In his initial statement, the prosecutor also highlighted that the victim’s blood was found in the car.
“I want to ask you for a verdict, the only verdict that justice demands, to declare the accused guilty of murder in the first degree ”, the prosecutor told the jurors.
The defense of Bahena Rivera decided to postpone their initial comments, and they began to be called the witnesses.
The judge in the case urged prosecutors and defenders to avoid any reference in the trial to the immigration status of the accused, to avoid a repeat of the politicization of three years ago years on the debate on undocumented immigration in the United States.
This crime fueled the rhetoric against undocumented immigrants and there were threats against the Hispanic community of Iowa.
Racial tension in the state rose to such an extent that activist groups in Iowa denounced a campaign of automated phone calls made by a white supremacist group that sowed fear in the Hispanic community.
In the calls, Bahena Rivera, who had lived undocumented for many years in the crime zone, was described as an “intruder non-white savage ”that comprised a“ brown horde ”(referring to the darker skin color of many Latinos) that has invaded the US.
It is The trial, which takes place in Scott County Courthouse in downtown Davenport, is expected to last at least 10 days. There is no public during the trial, due to the coronavirus sanitary measures, but those interested can attend online.