Evelyn Hernández, 21, was found innocent after the judge said there was not enough evidence to convict her, according to Hernández’s defense team.
In April 2016, Hernández was found on the floor of her bathroom drenched in blood. She was taken to a local emergency room in her hometown of El Carmen, roughly 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) east of the capital by her mother and a neighbor.
Doctors who examined her saw signs of a delivery but no baby and reported her to the authorities. When local officials arrived at her home five hours later, they found the newborn dead in a septic tank.
In 2017, Hernández was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing the child. Prosecutors at the time claimed she had induced an abortion and left the baby for dead.
She served 33 months of her initial 30-year sentence and
was freed last February after her legal team presented an appeal before the Supreme Court and requested her retrial. At the end of the retrial on Friday in Ciudad Delgado, prosecutors asked the court to impose an even longer sentence of 40 years.
Source: Rape victim at center of controversial abortion trial acquitted
