Spanish
Guayaquil (Ecuador).- A court in Ecuador upheld on Thursday the sentence of 34 years and eight months in prison imposed on former police officer Germán Cáceres for the femicide of his wife, lawyer María Belén Bernal, which occurred in September 2022 inside the Escuela Superior de Policía, where the convicted man worked as an instructor.
This ratification by the judges of the Criminal Chamber of the Provincial Court of Justice of Pichincha, in Quito, is announced a year after the appeal hearing was held, in which, according to Bernal's lawyers, Cáceres' defense sought a reduction of the sentence, the maximum possible for femicides.
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Furthermore, in this same hearing, which was held remotely, the victim's family requested that police officer Alfonso Camacho, who had been accused by the prosecution of an alleged crime of failure to assist the victim, be declared guilty.
However, the court, with a majority vote, confirmed his innocence, the Public Ministry assured through its official channels.
The events occurred on September 11, 2022, at the Escuela Superior de Policía, located in the north of Quito, where Cáceres murdered Bernal and then hid his body, which was not found until ten days later on a hill near the place.
The agent, who was a police instructor, fled days later and was not captured until the end of December of that same year 2022 in Colombia. In May 2023, he was found guilty of the crime of femicide and has since served his sentence in various prisons in the country.The femicide in Bernal shocked the entire country and became a symbol of sexist violence for having been perpetrated within a state institution and under police surveillance.
Justice and Reparation
Although the hearing was held virtually, some members of women's organizations and relatives of other femicide victims arrived at the exterior of the Provincial Court of Justice of Pichincha very early to show their support for Bernal's mother, Elizabeth Otavalo.
One of them was Estefanía Díaz, whose sister was a victim of femicide on March 4th. "I am here, standing my ground, as always," said the woman, also part of the organization Madres Justicia.
Díaz criticized that the hearing has not been held in person, despite the fact that there is a regulation that indicates this for cases of gender violence. "Maybe they don't want to listen to us here, but we are still standing up for María Belén and for other victims," she said. And he called for "truth, justice, and reparation" for Bernal and his family, especially for the victim's son and his mother, who has been leading the fight for three years."Someone has to set precedents"
Otavalo, for her part, said in an interview before the start of the hearing that she was surprised by the fourteen months it took the court to announce its decision and denounced that the families of femicide victims in the country are "alone."
"It's not just that they killed my daughter, which is a soul-wrenching pain, it's that after that there's a journey where there's no process of containment or protection from the State," she stated. Otavalo also stated that this lack of support and the obstacles posed by the justice system cause many mothers or family members of femicide victims to decide to give up and abandon the processes. "But I continue for my grandson, for my family, for those to come, for their daughters, for women. Someone has to set precedents. They kill us every day and the justice system only sees a business there. It's time for someone to protect us," she added.According to the latest figures from the Aldea Foundation, a civil society organization that monitors femicides, a woman or girl is murdered every 21 hours in the country. As of March 15th, 82 sexist murders had been recorded since the beginning of 2025.
