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MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican judge has freed an actor arrested last week in connection with the slaying of an Argentine model who authorities said the suspect had met at a local acting school.
Axel Arenas was released after his defense team presented evidence at a hearing Monday showing he was not in Mexico at the time of the killing.
Mexico City chief prosecutor Edmundo Garrido Osorio defended his office at a news conference Tuesday, saying investigators had enough evidence to initially request the arrest warrant.
Garrido said last week that three employees at a Mexico City hotel where Karen Ailen Grodzinski was found dead provided evidence that led investigators to Arenas. Grodzinski was shot in the head on Dec. 27.
But Emiliano Robles Gomez Mont, Arenas' lawyer, said Tuesday that he had presented evidence from his client's passport that showed he was in Colombia from Dec. 25 to Jan. 1.
He said he expected authorities to confirm the evidence they presented about Arenas' whereabouts and then end that line of investigation.
Robles also rejected another key piece of prosecutors' evidence that his client and the victim had met at a local acting school.
"It's a lie," the lawyer said. "There isn't a single piece of evidence that they knew each other or had studied together."
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