An indigenous Guatemalan woman has returned to her homeland after she spent more than seven years in prison in Mexico without trial.

According to Al Jazeera, the foreign ministry of Guatemala confirmed that Juana Alonzo Santizo, 35, had arrived in the country after being accused of kidnapping and jailed in the northern Mexican border city.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Mario Bucaro welcomed Alonzo at the Guatemala City airport on Sunday, as shown in a video posted on Twitter. The indigenous Guatemalan woman then joined her family and collapsed into her father's and uncle's arms.

Alonzo said in Spanish, which she learned while in prison, that she is now free and very happy to be with her family. Her relatives helped her change from jeans into traditional indigenous regional clothes.

Before breaking into tears, Alonzo noted that it had been eight years since she last saw her family while also expressing gratitude to those who had supported her release.

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Indigenous Guatemalan Woman Freed

Juana Alonzo Santizo was never convicted and never been tried. She was being held all that time in "pre-trial detention."

NBC News reported a Mexican court ordered her immediate release on Saturday. The head of Mexico's federal public defenders' office, Netzai Sandoval, said the court had ruled that there was no consistent evidence against Alonzo.

National and international groups backed an advocacy campaign for her freedom. Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador also supported the call for her release, while the Tamaulipas prosecutor's office withdrew the charges against her.

Sandoval noted that it was a "totally aberrant case." She said "all" of Alonzo's rights were violated because she was a woman, an Indigenous person, a migrant, poor, and "didn't speak Spanish."

Pedro Alonzo, the indigenous Guatemalan woman's uncle, said his niece had migrated in hopes of helping her family.

Pedro noted that Alonzo's crime was "being unable to speak Spanish" and asked who was "going to pay for that scar?"

Indigenous Guatemalan Woman Juana Alonzo Santizo

The Mayan Chuj woman from Guatemala left her hometown in August 2014, hoping to reach the United States.

The United Nations Human Rights Office noted that a migrant smuggler had laid out a plan for Juana Alonzo Santizo, wherein she would cross the Mexican border and get to the northern Mexican city of Reynosa.

Alonzo could not communicate with others in her group as she did not speak Spanish and could not tell where she was.

Upon reaching Reynosa, the migrant smuggler and other groups of unknown men sequestered Alonzo with two other migrant women in a private house. The women were then forced to work for their captors. 

One victim found a way to call and exposed her kidnappers to the local police. Two other victims accused Alonzo of being connected to the kidnappers upon their rescue.

The indigenous Guatemalan woman was detained by police officers and moved to the local police station in Reynosa, facing a language barrier, which led to her not being able to answer the questions asked.

Alonzo recalled that neither lawyer nor interpreter was present during the interrogation, adding that she also did not receive medical attention.

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This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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