Wife of killer in Mari Luz case given two years for perjury

The wife of Santiago del Valle, the man convicted of the January 2008 murder of five-year-old Mari Luz Cortés in Huelva, has been sentenced to two years in prison and fined 732 euros for giving false testimony during her husband's trial.

The judge considered that Isabel García "radically" changed the story she had given during the investigation stage of the 2011 trial to favor her husband and damage her sister-in-law, Rosa del Valle. Her husband was sentenced to 22 years in jail for the murder, while his sister received nine years as an accomplice.

According to the sentence, García falsely said it was her sister-in-law who "called over the girl Mari Luz to get her into the house, who got her inside and gave her a bag of sweets, that the girl fell on the stairs; that Rosa had put her inside a shopping cart, covering her with a jacket and then, in the trunk of the car, took her to the marsh where, after recovering consciousness, she hit her again and threw her in the water." García said Rosa del Valle had told her this during a conversation in Pajaroncillo, Cuenca, in March 2008.

García refused to give evidence in her trial last week, but Del Valle did. She said she had "never spoken alone with her sister-in-law" about the death of Mari Luz and that García lied during the trial, incriminating her in the murder to cause her damage.