Woman accused of homicide after giving birth to a stillborn baby acquitted
A Salvadoran court has acquitted a woman accused of homicide after giving birth to a stillborn baby, in a case that drew international attention to the socially conservative nation's strict abortion ban.
Evelyn Hernandez, 21, was previously convicted of intentionally inducing an abortion and had already served three years of a 30-year prison sentence.
In February, the Supreme Court ordered Hernandez released and retried, saying that the original judge's decision was based on prejudice and insufficient evidence.
“Thank God, justice was done,” Hernandez, in tears, told a cheering crowd outside the courthouse.
“There are many women who are still locked up and I call for them to be freed soon, too.”
Hernandez was raped by a gang member and said she was unaware of her pregnancy until just before she gave birth to a stillborn son in April 2016.
“This is a resounding victory for the rights of women in El Salvador,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International's Americas director, said about the verdict.
Some 147 Salvadoran women have been sentenced to up to 40 years in prison in such cases between 2000 and 2014, according to a local group supporting the decriminalisation of abortion.
“We can't lose sight of the fact that there are many more women whose liberty has been unjustly taken from them,” said Hernandez's lawyer, Bertha Deleon.
“We're moving forward, and we want to keep fighting for the freedom of the others just like we were able to do for Evelyn.”
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