Santiago del Valle and his sister Rosa, arrested on March 22nd in connection with the death of five year old Mari Luz Cortes, have been moved from Huelva jail to Albolote prison in Granada on the grounds of fear for their safety.
Del Valle and his sister are accused of murdering five year old Mari Luz Cortes who disappeared in the capital city of Huelva on March 13th and whose body was found 54 days later floating in the Huelva estuary.
The whole case appears to have been a series of judicial errors. At the time of his arrest, Del Valle was supposed to have been serving a two years and nine months sentence imposed in 2002 by the courts in Sevilla for sexually abusing his own daughter and has another outstanding conviction, and pending jail sentence, relating to the sexual assault of a nine year old girl.
An investigation is also underway regarding a similar murder which took place in 1991, also in Huelva. It seems that Santiago del Valle and his brother Juan were also questioned in connection with the murder of Ana Maria Jerez Cano, although it was a friend of theirs, José Franco, who was the only person convicted and is currently serving his sentence in Ciudad Real prison.