MEXICO CITY, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- A Frenchwoman sentenced to 60 years in a Mexican prison for a kidnapping she says she didn't commit lost her final appeal, drawing ire from France.
"This decision will weigh on our bilateral relations," French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in a statement. "I am appalled by the court's decision to back the judge's ruling on Florence Cassez. It is a denial of justice."
Cassez says she knew nothing about the three 2005 kidnappings her boyfriend confessed to, and on appeal she argued Mexican authorities violated procedural law including staging her arrest before television, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Cassez was arrested at a ranch near Mexico City where three kidnapping victims had been held captive for two months.
She has always maintained her only link with the incident was her relationship as girlfriend to the lead kidnapper, the BBC said.
The victims, one of whom was only 8 years old, allegedly identified her as taking an active part in the kidnapping.
It later came to light that the arrest the public saw was a re-enactment staged by the police for the media.
During the appeal, Cassez's lawyers argued unsuccessfully she already had been judged guilty in the court of public opinion, the BBC said.
In 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy pleaded to Mexican officials to allow Cassez to serve her sentence in a French jail.
