The lawyer acting for Santiago del Valle, the paedophile who in March this year was found guilty of the murder of 5 year old Mari Luz Cortés, have this Tuesday lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court against his 22 year prison sentence.

The appeal is based on an alleged violation of the presumption of innocence and a violation of procedural rules, EFE reports.

Del Valle’s lawyer, Juan López Rueda, alleges on the first point that his client was convicted of sexual abuse and murder ‘without sufficient proof’ and, on the second, that the provincial court in Huelva refused to accept from a witness who would have supported Del Valle’s innocence.

This witness is understood to be a local police officer who took a statement from a taxi driver who said he saw Del Valle, his wife, Isabel García, and his sister Rosa at 6pm on the day Mari Luz disappeared. The taxi driver said he saw them outside their home putting a shopping trolley into the boot of Rosa del Valle’s car.

This, the lawyer claims, would have made it impossible for his client to have dumped Mari Luz’s body in the Huelva marshes earlier that afternoon.

Geologists at Huelva University analysed splashes of earth found on the underside of the car and said during the trial that it was ‘highly probable’ that they came from the road which led to the spot where Mari Luz’s body was dumped. Taking into account the tides, they gave a time frame of between 16.40 and 17.40 pm on January 13 2008.

El Mundo newspaper however reported at the time that the geologists said it could also have been 12 hours later, shortly before high tide.