The 12-year prison sentence imposed on Moisés Martínez is a legal and moral scandal. It is not a sentence against just any murderer: it is the final revictimization of a young man who, after decades of domestic terror, did what the Uruguayan State steadfastly refused to do for years: protect his family from a
convicted sexual predator.Carlos Martínez, the father, was convicted in 2010 for a continuing crime of indecent violence against his own daughter Sara, who reported more than 60 systematic abuses since she was 12 years old. The sentence handed down was three years and two months. He was just one and a half years old. He was released for “good behavior”. The same system that today severely punishes Moses decided, fifteen years ago, that a serial child abuser deserved to return to the streets and live with his victims. That decision was not a technical error: it was an active complicity
.Because when justice frees a rapist from his own daughter after serving less than half of an already ridiculous sentence, it is sending a clear message: domestic sexual abuse is not that serious. The pain of the victims, the psychological consequences, the daily terror, all of this is worth less than the “good behavior” of a monster. Carlos Martínez's early release was not an act of mercy; it was a slow death sentence for his family. It was the guarantee that hell would continue
.Moisés Martínez grew up in that hell. Beats, threats, abuses against their sisters, a climate of constant terror. The defense demonstrated in court that the young man suffered a “complex trauma” and an “emotional collapse” after learning new details of the abuse days before the incident. It wasn't a premeditated hate murder: it was the explosion of someone who saw, once again, that the State was not going to protect him. The father was there, free, unpunished, and Justice — the same one that had released him — continued to look
the other way.And now that same Justice, through Judge María Noel Odriozola, denies Moisés the “legal pardon” of Article 36 of the Criminal Code. He recognizes the years of violence, recognizes the context of abuse, but decides that it is not enough to exempt from responsibility. What else did the magistrate need to see? That the father continued to abuse? That another sister would end up shattered? That Moses committed suicide out of desperation
