Nov
12
KILLER COUPLE CAGED
Filed Under EN
A separated Spanish couple were each jailed for 18 years for drugging and suffocating their 12-year- old adopted Chinese daughter, in a case that has drawn the attention of Beijing.
A nine-member jury in the northwestern region of Galicia on October 30 unanimously found the couple guilty of killing their daughter, Asunta Yong Fang Basterra Porto, after one of the most closely followed criminal trials in Spain in recent years.
The girl’s body was found on a forest trail in September 2013.
Her parents had reported her missing a few hours before she was found, but the jury agreed with prosecutors that the couple had in fact conspired to kill their daughter and try to make it look like a random act of violence.
A court in Santiago de Compostela yesterday sentenced Rosario Porto, 46, a former lawyer, and ex-husband, journalist Alfonso Basterra, 51, for murder.
Prosecutors charged that the murder had been planned by both parents, but carried out by the mother.
At the time of the girl’s death, the couple were separated but were raising their adopted daughter together.
Prosecutors accused the parents of giving Asunta varying doses of the sedative Orfidal for several months to test its impact on her before finally giving a strong enough dose to knock her out so they could choke her to death with a rope without the girl being able to fight back.
During the trial Asunta’s violin teacher told the court that two months before the girl was found dead the girl had been woozy and incapable of playing.
Asunta was adopted by the couple in China when she was less than a year old.
She was the first Chinese baby to be adopted in Galicia and her arrival in the region was covered by a local television station. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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