Owner of ABC Daycare Center where 49 children died arrested in the US; They ask for her return to Mexico
Sandra Lucia Tellez Nieves, partner and owner of the ABC Daycare Center, was arrested in Arizona, according to the mother of one of the deceased children
On June 5, 2009, Mexico experienced one of its worst tragedies when a fire at the ABC Daycare Center in Hermosillo, Sonora, left 49 children dead and an unknown number injured.
Sixteen years after that moment, parents of the 49 deceased minors and survivors of the fire at the ABC Daycare Center reported this Sunday of the alleged detention in the United States of Sandra Tellez, a partner in the daycare center, and demanded her immediate extradition to Mexico.
In a letter addressed to the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, and the attorney general of the Republic, Alejandro Gertz Manero, the The Manos Unidas por Nuestros Nios group, made up of relatives of the victims of that incident, stated that they had learned "unofficially" of the arrest of Sandra Lucia Tllez Nieves.
According to the Manos Unidas por Nuestros Nios group, Tllez Nieves, a member of the ABC Daycare Center, was detained at the Detention Center in the City of Eloy, Arizona, United States.
This is a consequence of the red notice submitted to Interpol for the re-arrest warrant issued against her so that she complies with the final and firm sentence that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation issued against her.
"We ask the Mexican State to do what is necessary so that (citizen) Sandra Lucia Tllez Nieves be deported and extradited to our country and placed at the disposal of the Mexican authorities,” the organization requested.
“Regardless of whether the authorities made the arrest in the State of Arizona, the Mexican authorities should have been immediately notified of this situation, and we, as offended parties and indirect victims of the tragedy, have not been informed of anything by any authority, and this silence is highly suspicious,” they demanded.
According to the parents, a US law firm is requesting political asylum for Tllez Nieves, claiming that the woman is being politically persecuted "when in reality she is responsible for the negligent homicide of 49 children and negligent injuries to more than 106 children," they added.
Tellez Nieves is identified as the partner and owner of the ABC Daycare Center. In 2016 she was sentenced to 28 years, 11 months and four days in prison, but after several appeals and injunctions her sentence was reduced to 5 years and 7 months in prison.
It is known that Sandra Lucia Tellez Nieves's husband is Alberto Escalante, the then undersecretary of Livestock of the state of Sonora, in 2009 when the tragedy of the ABC Daycare fire occurred.