Ex Amazon Mexico CEO wanted for questioning after executive’s wife, Abril Pérez Sagaón shot dead amid bitter divorce proceedings and previous attempt on her life.
The former CEO of Amazon Mexico is wanted for questioning in his estranged wife’s murder after she was shot dead in apparent Mexico City ambush earlier this week.
Juan Carlos García and his wife, Abril Pérez Sagaón, had been embroiled in divorce proceedings when she was shot in the head and neck Monday by a motorcyclist in front of two of their children at an airport, El Pais reported.
Pérez — who had a restraining order against her husband — accused the former executive of attempted murder earlier this year, claiming he beat her with a baseball bat while she was asleep.
He was taken into custody for the incident but released last month when the judge downgraded the charge to domestic violence.
Aristegui News reported the executive having been in custody for ten months before being released.
The mother of three had been in Mexico City for a court hearing and was headed to the airport to leave when she was killed on Monday. At the time of the shooting, El Pais reported the couple’s two teenage children were in the backseat while her lawyer was driving.
The lawyer and the children were not injured.
The woman’s family claim that her estranged husband arranged the assassination.
An increase of 16% in femicide rates in Mexico year over year:
According to the victim’s brother, cited in Millennium, the reclassification of last year’s attempted murder to that of domestic violence had made it possible for Garcia to go free after a judge considered that the bat ‘was not a murder weapon but a playful instrument,’ and that, in addition, at the time of the attack she was asleep. That earned the judge to change it from serious to common.
‘He has enough money to hire a hitman,’ a relative told El Pais. ‘We have no doubt that it was him.’
The Attorney General’s Office of Mexico City has reportedly requested an investigation into the judge. Of note, Mosco González is the same judge who, back in August, made headlines after freeing a doctor who had been accused of raping a patient.
According to him National Citizen Feminicide Observatory, a network formed by 43 activist groups and working with the authorities, from January to September of this year 2,833 women have been killed in Mexico, almost 400 more than in the previous year, when 3,662 cases were reported. The jump represents a 16% increase in femicide rates and is reflective of the general antipathy towards women in the region.
While no charges have been filed, Sagaón’s estranged husband is considered the main suspect, El Pais reported.
García was hired to run Amazon Mexico operations in 2014 and left three years later to join the commerce group Elektra, according to his LinkedIn page.
@AmazonHelp apparently the ex ceo of amazon-Mexico @jcgs68 killed his wife, this is on all media. You guys should think of a campaign to stop woman hate in amazon-Mexico workers https://t.co/qVBtbrdJRi
— Rubiel (@Don_Rubiel) November 29, 2019